


All It Has To Be

by LitheLies



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Porn, Auror Draco Malfoy, Dirty Talk, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Fluffy Ending, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hogwarts Library, Library Sex, Ministry of Magic Employee Hermione Granger, One Night Stands, POV Draco Malfoy, PWP without Porn, Porn with Feelings, Two Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:07:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LitheLies/pseuds/LitheLies
Summary: Leave it to Hermione Granger to ruin their mutual silence with a (not-very-drunk and very questionable) confession about the Library.{ Twoshot - Eighth Year / Flash Forward To Ministry Times - PWP - Draco POV - Slow Build }
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 70
Kudos: 773





	1. Chapter 1

_"Never have I ever gotten off in the school library."_

That had been the prompt, one which everyone laughed at. The same one that Draco had uttered with a smug smirk leveled at Granger. He wanted to watch her blush and flounce and fret. But she hadn't.

Instead, Hermione crooked her finger with a raise of her eyebrow. 

Never had he been so offended by a finger being curled towards a palm. And yet his eyes boggled out of his head at Granger, his lips a whisper apart. No one dared to speak, not unless you counted the snorts and gasps.

Because there was no way that Hermione Granger, the swottiest of swots, had admitted to a group of her peers that she’d gotten off in the Library. Were it not warm and light outside, he’d assume it were Christmas.

“I — “ Granger gargled. “The game isn’t about details. It’s about honesty.”

Michael Corner, who’d convinced her to join in, laughed.

“Never have I ever shagged Weasley,” Blaise said with a smarmy grin.

And her fingers remained up as much as her brow, which was arched at Blaise. “You aren’t supposed to target people.”

“You’re very focused on rules for someone who disgraced the school Library." Draco lip curled around the sentence like it were a fine wine. Tart, a little sharp, and every bit as intoxicating as the embarrassment that spewed across Granger’s face.

A belated reaction was still a reaction. He'd take that, for now.

“Never have I ever,” said Abbott, who was beside Longbottom. She sucked the spit between her teeth as if in deep thought. “Shagged in the Quidditch change rooms.”

Draco, Blaise, and Pansy all dropped a finger at once, which sent the group into laughter all around. It was strange, to hear their Eighth year dorms full of laughter. But it was the end of May and if they were going to get drunk, it might as well be a week before their exams. They’d written so many essays their hands were shaped like claws around invisible quills. And Draco smiled at Blaise as if to discern who he’d had in the change rooms.

The game wasn’t very fun given that Pansy shared many of her confessions with him. But at least he was never as alone as Granger, who had put down two fingers. One for the Library, the other for if they’d gotten off in the dorms. Which granted, everyone had lost to.

But the fire whiskey was strong and the tension was palpable.

Michael and Granger never joined their peers in such games. They were busy with patrols and mentorship and all that boorish time-wasting. They were more invested in the school than Draco could understand, but at least it wasn’t him. He leaned back into the black leather couch, the same one that he’d claimed at the start of the semester. The visitor’s quarters from Fourth year, given their limited numbers and their age gap with the First years.

They were adults, after all. As if he wanted to wallow in the muck with the children when he could sip fire whiskey by firelight.

Not that he deserved the joy, but he was too relaxed for self-pity right now.

The game petered out as Longbottom and Abbott broke into a debauched confession of how they’d uprooted a slew of mandrakes by mistake and…

He’s distracted if he’s honest.

Not for the first time.

Draco rested his elbow on his knee, his eyes narrowed at Granger. She had a glass of water next to her fire whiskey and a droop to her eyelids. She hadn’t touched the fire whiskey he noticed. He didn’t know why, but he had. She lifted it as if she were about to drink and then she’d set it aside. He knew the gesture, as he’d been doing the same. His glass remained full though he took a slight sip every so often. Not enough to get drunk, not like the rest of them. 

(Excluding Granger.)

“— his fault!” Pansy shoved Draco hard in the shoulder.

Which sent fire whiskey down his front. The full glass meant that he was coated, collarbone to crotch, and all he could do was deadpan at the girl.

“Oops?”

“Let me clean it,” Blaise said with a lazy tongue.

“As if I want a drunkard pointing their wand at me,” Draco spat.

“I’m only a wee bit drunk,” Blaise pouted.

Draco rolled his eyes. He’d left his wand in his dorm as he’d felt safe enough without it. He got to his feet without a word, to stalk towards his dorm. The laughter waited at least until he was through the archway to the boys’ dorm. There were so few of them that they had a private room each. The wing had been designed with the Triwizarding tournament. Thirty identical rooms were laid in either corridor, though he took the right path. He didn’t care that whiskey dripped along the floor, not until he heard someone shuffle and slip behind him.

But he had no wand —

Draco pivoted, to grab whoever it was. He assumed it was Pansy out to apologize, and he was somewhat right. It’d been Granger, slight and similar to Pansy. He always assumed Granger was big, given her hair, but his hand cleared her wrist and his fingers overlapped around it. She had her wand out and wide eyes, a sight that made his stomach clench.

“We made it this far in the year without a fight,” he said, his tone thin.

And it was true. Draco had been on his best behavior, as the Ministry had a direct link with Hogwarts. If he stepped out of line or misbehaved, he’d be sent to Azkaban. He’d avoided Granger like she were cyanide but now all he can think is how she’s not as plain as she had been, before.

Granger didn’t fight against his grip, her gaze wary up at him.

“I’m not drunk.”

“I…” Granger trailed off. “I wanted to help you, with your shirt.”

“It’s more than my shirt,” he said with a wry smile, which was as close to a smile as she’d ever get from him.

Granger made a strange face up at him as if she wanted to argue the point with him.

He let go of her wrist, aware that it’d been far too much to remain. His face scrunched up as he stepped back, the whiskey washed all the way down to his shoes. He returned to his stride — and then he stopped. He swooped back to her with a sizable gap left between them.

Granger took a step back, her brow set.

“Who’d you get off in the Library with? Weasley?”

Granger let out a laugh.

“Potter?”

Her laughter faded but the mirth didn’t disappear. Instead, she narrowed her eyes up at him, a defiant distance between them. They weren’t friends. She didn’t owe him anything, least of all an answer to such a question. She looked over her shoulder as if it were some grand secret, and he supposed it was.

It wasn’t as if Granger was known for such things.

Granger lifted her head, an air of superiority that made him want to grab her by the throat. “I never said someone else was involved.” She gave him a once over, to the fire whiskey stained clothes he wore. And she waved her wand, as simple as anything, and a horrible wash of warmth and light brushed him from head to toe.

His arms remained outward at ninety-degree angles, his fingers formed into claws.

“You should get some sleep,” she stashed her wand. “We have a practice exam tomorrow morning, you will want to be prepared for it.” And she turned, to head back towards the group.

Draco watched her go, a pit in his stomach that growled and grew as she walked away. He’d kept away from her all year, terrified of her, terrified of everything between them. He wasn’t some changed man, out to prove the world wrong. He was the same man, driven, loyal, calculating — the last trait is what kept him in place. She didn’t have to say that. She could have said it was a lie, that it was a joke, but for some reason, Granger is a proud girl with an honest streak.

She lied often, he was sure. She lied about plenty of rule-breaking.

So she was either lying about this for fun.

Or —

Draco jogged after her before she could reach the end of the corridor. She’d slowed her gait, just a fraction, and tipped her head to watch his approach.

“Why confess?”

Granger narrowed her eyes at him. “Because no one would believe you.”

And she left.

As if he gave her permission to leave.

As if he wanted her to stay.

Draco remained fixed to the spot, an empty spot formed in his chest. He couldn’t quantify it, but it hadn’t been there before. His hand hovered by his ribs as if she’d yanked out his liver for a laugh. Beneath his long fingers, he felt warm cotton… Which was strangely vanilla scented, as if she’d struck him with an extra layer of charms. She was such a show-off.

He changed once he was in his dorm because his clothes smelled like her now. He tossed them into a corner and crawled into bed without even bothering with pajamas.

Five minutes later, he’d come like it was a chore. He growled her name like a threat to the open air, anger bubbled in his veins because he’d not done that since Fifth year if that. And of all the stupid people, of all the insufferable idiots, why did it have to be Granger that thrust his cock against his palm. He couldn’t picture it, not perfectly. It was shapeless shadows, her seated on a desk, or a seat, between books, in the aisles. He couldn’t decide what was best.

Worse than that, he came, but it wasn’t…

It wasn’t enough. Like, yes, functionally he’d come, but it felt so shallow. But he was tired and they had practice exams, and he’d throw himself into the Great Lake naked before he jerked off to the thought of Hermione Granger a second time.

(He was already damned for the first time, he didn’t want to make it worse.)

…

Granger couldn’t know, of course.

But he felt like she might, given the sly smile she shot his way as she passed him in the dorm. But his guilty deference betrayed him as he stared at a tapestry, an essay flaccid in his grip. He strained the parchment to read it, but Granger dawdled, back and forth, her hands and mouth moving so much that he had to look at her.

She was practicing for an exam, and she looked ridiculous.

Draco glared at her as she walked although her pace remained predictable. As if she didn’t care that he was glaring at her. Which was annoying in itself, as she’d been such an irrelevant element all year. He’d not thought about her outside of his usual fare, of how he’d loathe her need to answer every question. But they’d remained out of one another’s paths.

And now she was here, pacing and mouthing around shapes.

And it was annoying.

“Must you do that here?”

“Do what?” Granger had the audacity to look surprised.

“Pacing,” he gestured at her with his essay which fluttered. “Mumbling.”

“Oh, sorry,” she smiled a weak smile. “I’m waiting for Michael.”

“Adorable,” Draco said like it were the worst insult he could muster.

Granger’s lips twitched as if she’d not caught the spite. “We aren’t dating if that’s what you mean.”

“No, you’re a future victim of the Weasley clan,” he withdrew from her, to slouch back onto the couch.

“I… What?”

“The number of children they have — it’s a death sentence.”

“No, I’m not with Ron.”

Draco tipped his head just a little, just enough to look up at her from his patented patent leather couch. He kept his expression distant and sharp to avoid any softness that had formed from his surprise.

Granger shrugged a shoulder as she turned to look at Longbottom, who stumbled in with a huff and a puff.

“Michael’s cramming for his Astronomy exam tonight.”

“He… Did he forget he had it?”

“They moved the exams for Astronomy around, clouds,” Neville waved a hand. He shot Draco a sharp look as if he wanted to kick him in the stomach where he laid.

Draco smiled, an edge like a knife as his teeth flashed. It was the cruel sort of smile you gave behind your parents’ back to the ugly children they forced you to play with.

Granger watched as Neville tromped off towards the corner where Abbott had a bunch of snacks and a little pile of books. Draco wanted to go over, to steal their sweets and toss their books into the fire. As if anyone was allowed to be happy at school in the middle of exams, the absolute gall — 

“Draco.”

Draco’s hand defaulted to his chest as if someone had driven a dagger to the hilt between his ribs.

“I need to do patrols, and… You aren’t busy, are you?” Granger stared at him, her hands on her hips. It wasn’t a question, no matter how lilted her tone was.

“I am busy. Incredibly busy.”

“Well, you were a Prefect, so you know the drill.”

“I said I’m busy.”

“I can’t do patrols alone. If I get cornered, or if something really is going on, I need someone with me, it’s protocol.”

Draco stared up at her as if he were waiting for the offer to dissipate. But Granger remained, her arms crossed and her brows furrowed.

“You either offer to help, or I’ll go ask McGonagall and she’ll make you help.”

“I preferred when you hated me,” Draco hissed with a wave of his arm.

“I never hated you,” Granger said with a visible bob in her throat. 

Draco shoved himself to his feet which gave him the advantage of height. And with Granger, he needed every advantage he could get. She was clever and deadly, two factors that were easy to forget given how plain she looked. She wasn’t angular or cruel, she wasn’t a clear threat. She was soft brown eyes wrapped with a mop of brown hair, which she’d braided into a messy knot at the base of her neck. She was as threatening as a maid in a stage play, the sort you didn’t even look at twice.

And yet he stood there, his gaze fixed on her.

“I felt sorry for you but I never hated you,” Granger said like it were poison, slipped through his ears and into his mind.

Draco grimaced through his wounded pride, his throat tight and his shoulders squared. He had a choice. He could turn away the request and make McGonagall have to come down here, to yell at him. Or, painfully enough, he could help her. It wouldn’t be much help, he doubted Granger needed him with her. She had fought the Dark Lord, she had survived, she was so strong, blah, blah, blah. He’d been smothered in praise of her since the end of the war.

As if the war had actually ended.

“Fine,” he spat as if he might bite her.

“Thank you.”

They set off on a patrol of the Fifth floor, then the Sixth. They’d work their way up then back down to the Fourth floor. Their dorms were on the Fourth floor, after all, it only made sense. The visitors’ quarters had been set up beside the Library and near some abandoned Study Halls. It didn’t matter that he’d been at this school for eight years now, he’d never see every inch of it. He’d done a few patrols of the upper floors, but he’d usually been kept to the lower floors and the dungeons.

They paced the Sixth floor in silence.

The same with the Seventh.

But he’d watched her because the portraits were all asleep and the air was still. Exam time bred weary students and so this patrol thing was a scam. Draco refused to look at Granger directly, refused to acknowledge her, and she permitted this. She had her chin high and her eyes wide as if she expected to be attacked at any moment.

Draco’s gaze skimmed the empty tapestry rungs, up to the left.

The spot across from the Room of Requirement.

“I’m sorry,” Granger said. “About Crabbe.”

“It was his own stupid fault,” Draco swallowed hard.

Granger stared at him through the shadows and he pretended not to notice.

Silence swallowed them again in their silent patrol. He should have left her to her precious patrol. It wasn’t as if he had nothing better to do. He could stand on the spot and slam his head into a wall for all the good that would do. But he continued, his pace as swift as she’d match. She didn’t seem pleased either, it wasn’t as if she wanted to be here with him.

“I don’t need your pity,” Draco said, his voice tense.

“I don’t pity you.” Granger dropped her head, her brows furrowed. “I said that I felt sorry for you. For Crabbe.”

“Which is pitying — ”

“There’s a difference,” Granger stopped, which was the opposite of what he wanted.

Draco looked at her across his shoulder. He’d avoided her for the entire school year. Why now, why several weeks away from their last days together?

Why couldn’t she stay away?

“Feeling sorry for someone is pity,” Draco said in a strangled voice. 

“I think there’s a difference.”

Draco crossed his arms to stop his hands from twitching. He wanted to grab his wand, to _Confund_ her and leave her in this hallway. She could do the damn patrol on her own, as she should have when Corner had double-booked.

“Pity is more distant. Feeling sorry for someone is more — empathetic,” she said, stripped of what confidence she had before.

“Empathetic?” He snorted.

“You had no chance,” Granger said, her voice clear. “Your family was already trapped into their allegiance before you were born, everything was stacked against you. While you took to your side the same way we took to ours, I can’t help but wonder if we’d only… That is, I wish that we’d been able to help you, maybe we could have — ”

“No. We’re not doing this,” Draco said with a wave of his hand. He pivoted to continue along the corridor, his arms crossed over his chest.

Her little heels clicked on the floor behind him, closer.

Draco continued unaffected, his chin raised as high.

“I’m sorry,” Granger said with a heavy huff. “I’m sorry that we let you down.”

The silence returned between them as he picked apart her words. It was idiotic, of course. He had chosen his side, his side had lost. His family had defected just before the loss and his mother had helped bring down the Dark Lord. She’d done her best and she’d succeeded. It was a small miracle that he and his father both remained out of Azkaban, but Potter had insisted. He had testified, as had a handful of others. Including Granger, who’d never mentioned it, never asked him about it.

If she wanted a tearful thank you or gratitude, she could shove it up her arse. No. He was on this stupid patrol at her request and that was as close as he’d ever get to gratitude towards her. He’d not even thanked her for her concern the other night, or how she’d cleaned his clothes for him. Which brought him back to the worst part of this patrol; that scent of vanilla and how it’d worsen when she worried her hair.

They looped the Seventh floor, then the Sixth.

By the Fifth floor, he’d began to trust the silence.

And then they were on the Fourth floor which meant they’d be back to the dorms.

“The Library,” Granger said with a croak. “We have to clear the Library.”

Draco gritted his teeth.

“There’s a book Madame Pince uses by the front desk, it detects students in the Library,” she said with a rushed tone. She waved him after her towards the great, tall doors that opened up into the Library. It didn’t matter how many times he entered the place, it made his breath catch. For all his malice and showmanship, he did enjoy school. He loved to read and he especially loved to be right. His gaze skirted the lower shelves and the bird-like waft of books through the shelves.

A set of encyclopedias was in hot pursuit of a dictionary above like crows after a sparrow.

He smirked.

His gaze dropped down to Granger who’d crouched down beside the front desk. He stared unabashedly at her arse for there was fuck all else to do. He leaned back against a shelf, his arms crossed to match his ankles as he watched her search.

She’s so much more agreeable from this angle, even in the dark shadows and the dim light. He didn’t even hesitate as he pictured how easy it’d be to yank up her robes and grab her by the hips, to fuck her until he’d worked through whatever strange fascination had appeared when she’d confessed her masturbatory fantasy — because she couldn’t really have gotten off in the Library on her own.

“Here,” she said with an exhale, a pleased look on her face as she showed him the book.

His expression betrayed none of the thoughts, for they were only thoughts.

Granger slapped the book down onto the desk, the thick red leather so soft it arched with the pressure. She smoothed it, over and over. Whatever incantations and runes she were inciting spilled from her, her fingers in motion as her hair crackled with electricity. And then the book shuddered as if it’d been brought to life. It flapped once, twice, then shot off into the dark.

“Is it…”

“If no one was here, nothing would happen,” Granger said with a frown.

Draco groaned as he pushed away from the shelves. She’d already sprinted after it so he was left on a wild Niffler chase, off after the girl like he had nothing better to do.

(The head slamming thing; that would be better.)

He darted through the Charms section, through to Divination. He caught the whips of Granger’s robe and hair, then her foot, her elbow. He chased her and she chased the book. And by the time he saw her, the back of her, she was frozen in place. His stomach turned over on itself as he whipped out his wand, his eyes wide.

He stalked closer to shove her backward, against the shelves, his wand pointed at whoever the book had found.

Michael Corner and some Ravenclaw girl that Draco didn’t recognize were huddled in the corner with feigned nonchalance.

“Astronomy preparation, hm?” Draco said with a laugh.

“Well, it — we were,” Michael said with a heavy scowl. “We needed a textbook.”

“For reference,” the girl added, her shirt untucked and her hair skewed to one side.

“Go,” Granger said in a hot tone, her hands bunched by her sides.

“You… I’m a Head, too,” Michael said with a slight laugh.

“Get out!” Granger shouted, so loud that the shelves shook. She was magical enough to cause things to shift or shake by sheer volume, which explained the thick thud in Draco’s chest. The worse thud, lower, because he had some awful masochistic streak when she yelled and he didn’t have enough time in this world to pick that apart.

Michael and his study partner bolted at the sound of her. They were long gone. But Granger remained, her hands bunched at her sides and her shoulders so tense they might pop her own head off.

Draco waited for her to yell, or to storm off, or for something. But she remained fixed to the spot as if she’d become part of the Library itself. He watched her with cautious attention. He could leave, as she might have meant for him to leave alongside them. But… Call it ridiculous, but he didn’t much care to leave her alone in the middle of the Library. He’d been afraid of death once upon a time, afraid to die, but right now he welcomed it.

“Do people really care about anything else.”

“What’s the question?”

Granger turned as if she’d not expected him to be there.

Draco raised a brow at her, his wand held aside.

“Sex.”

Draco kept still and silent as if he might die otherwise.

“It’s always… Everything’s always about sex, sneaking off to have it, meeting up to have it, it’s like that’s all anyone ever seems to care about. Never mind the fact we have exams, and — and a world to rebuild, and there’s so much injustice in the Minstry — ”

“You can care about all that and have sex.”

Granger stared at him as if he’d just appeared; as if she’d not seen him until that moment.

Draco really wanted to be back in his dorm right now. He should have followed Michael and that girl, maybe he could have used their presence as an excuse to sneak away. But he was here with Hermione Granger, stuck in a conversation about how the world was too invested in sex. Which felt ridiculous to even say, given — 

Given he’d not even had it since his Fifth year, and that had been one of a small handful of times. It wasn’t as if he were an expert on the subject.

“Have you done it? Had sex?”

“Obviously,” Draco said as if she’d burned him with a cigarette. “Who hasn’t.”

Oh, no shit.

She hasn’t.

Granger gave a tart smile before she shoved past Draco, her elbows squared and her feet too high as she marched away.

By the time Draco caught up with her, they were back in their dorms. She had vanished down the girls’ corridor and he was left to his side, quite sure he’d lost his mind somewhere between the start of that patrol and the end of it. Because as he threw himself into bed, all he can picture is Granger. Again. As if the last time wasn’t terrible enough. But this time it was a coy, shy Granger, her face turned up to him in the dark, about how she’d never had sex before, about how she wanted to, just once, with him, harder, please, she could take it — 

Draco came with a hiss because he’s angry about it. He’s legitimately angry with her, with her stupid bushy head and her big brown eyes like a mutt, that stupid Granger.

He could strangle her.

…

Granger had tricked him twice. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

But she made him chase her.

Draco didn’t chase people.

Draco got what he wanted and those he wanted felt lucky. That was how it had worked until it didn’t — his name was an affliction now, not an advantage. He hadn’t enjoyed much of anything for so long. His Eighth year was a focused study and feigned normalcy. He’d have to hit the ground running once he was out of school to become a politician or something of note, as per his father’s plans.

His time was dedicated to the future, to change.

So to have Granger play the holier-than-thou card, as if she never thought about sex, it annoyed him. And he’d gotten off to the thought of her seven times at this point, and he felt dirty for it each and every time. 

Granger was the only one who said ‘happy birthday’ to him, aside from the few Slytherins he spoke to.

He added that to his list of reasons to strangle her.

He’d started calling her “Hermione” at some point after that, though he isn’t sure why.

Because it’s Hermione Granger, the plain pain of a Gryffindor. The Mudblood, Hermione Granger.

Never just ‘Hermione’.

But that stopped mattering somewhere, somehow, and he’s mad about that too.

And Hermione was mad, too. He noticed it with how she avoided Michael. She avoided everyone, in truth. Exams made that easier as she was the first to sit down and the first to leave. He’d only see her at meals or in passing in their dorms. By the night before their last…

He couldn’t be in the dorms. They were empty, and even with his private room, he felt that emptiness. He’d declined the invitation to Hogsmeade as the Eighth years were off to get drunk at the Leaky Cauldron. He couldn’t be there, or in the dorms alone.

It felt wrong.

And so he set off into the school. Because tomorrow he’d be on the train back home. He’d never have to come back to Hogwarts. He’d be free. For as long as he’d dreamed of that freedom, it didn’t feel as secure as it once had. It felt more like he was about to be drowned. He had an estate to manage, a job to secure, social engagements… He was expected to remedy his family’s image issues, he was expected to plan a future for the Malfoys, he was expected to fix everything his father had done.

Whether by cruel fate or that masochistic streak, he wound up at the Library.

Even if Granger found him, what could she do?

Give him detention?

Draco let out a low scoff. A small part of him hoped she’d find him, just for the satisfaction of that moment. He’d laugh in her face or hex her for his own amusement. Or he’d mock her for that pesky virginity of hers, about how everyone had gotten laid except for her, because — well, he needed to mock her for something and she’d flashed that like an exposed throat. She wanted to be mocked for it, given how defensive she’d gotten.

And to his utter non-surprise, he found her. She was in the Muggle Studies section where they kept the picture books about planes and dentists. He smirked in the low light, as the moon had dipped low enough to cast a light across them. She had her knees bent and her head bent lower, as if she were reading. And maybe she was, or she was half asleep. Or, sobbing.

Why did it have to be the latter.

“What are you doing?”

Hermione jumped, out of fear rather than shame. She swiped at her face and tossed aside her book on teeth.

“Everyone’s out celebrating the end of exams.”

“So why are you here?” Hermione asked with a croak.

Draco blinked at her as she’d stolen his question. The other Eighth years had gone out to Hogsmeade to get drunk and celebrate.

Hermione shoved herself to her feet, her arms folded and her chin raised at him.

“I wanted to be alone.” Not that she deserved an answer.

Hermione simmered, as if in anticipation of his mockery. And he had every reason to mock her, alone in a picture book section of the Library, crying. The virginal outcast, the savior of the Wizarding world who was overlooked while everyone jerked off Potter and Weasley. They were Aurors, as Draco had read. They were out there, fighting, surviving, all that Ministry propaganda.

“And you?” He squinted at her as he took a step closer to her as if she might dissipate. “Why’re you sobbing in the Library at three o’clock in the morning?”

“I’m going to miss it,” she said with no shame. “The books, the — “ her voice broke as she bunched her hands by her face.

Draco stared at her, terrified. This wasn’t his place. She shouldn’t be upset, least of all around him. He should’ve mocked her for her sobby little mess of a face and left. He should’ve hexed her and left.

He should have left, period.

“Sorry,” Hermione said with a thin smile. “I’m not going to report you, you…. You can go, or, do whatever it is you were about to do.”

“That’s very generous of you,” Draco said with thin malice in his voice.

Hermione let out a gentle laugh, her arms spread wide as she gestured to the Library. “I shouldn’t be here, neither should you. So long as neither of us admits the other was here — ”

“Are you suggesting a truce.”

Hermione’s hands flexed outward, her fingers to her palms, gentle arcs formed as she considered him. Her gaze lingered through the dark, a shadow cast by the mass of her hair around her face. It wasn’t braided back, it was unruly around her face. “Only took us eight years.”

“Who says I agreed.”

Hermione frowned.

“Why did you do it?” Draco said, no hesitation. “You said you got off in the Library; why, you of all people.”

Even through the dark, Draco could see her blush. She turned her face away a fraction, her brows furrowed. “I — I lied.”

“Sure,” Draco said with a dismissive snort.

“I hadn’t done anything, not really, and everyone else was almost out. I — ” Hermione locked eyes with him in the dark, her lips pouted outward. “I just wanted to play along, it’s not as if anyone would remember anyway. They were all drunk…”

Draco considered her, sharp silver pried through her soft brown eyes. It took no effort to pick through her surface thoughts to catch the truth. He’d learned from the best and had the benefit of natural Occlumency and Legilimency running in his family, though he’d trained in both.

All to work out if Hermione Granger had fingered herself in the Library.

(His aunt wouldn’t be proud.)

“You lied,” Draco said, so sarcastically scandalized he came full circle back to true upset. He pressed a hand to his chest, his mouth popped open at her.

“So?’ Hermione swelled with undeserved anger. She had been the one to lie, after all.

Draco tongued the inside of his mouth, his own anger burst like a blood vessel in his temple. He’d jerked off to a lie, and he felt cheated. He couldn’t even pinpoint the feeling she’d slammed into his chest that night or how she’d toyed with the very machinations of his mind. He’d never wanted to fuck her before, never even considered it. Not unless you counted that night at the Yule Ball or one Potions class where she’d taken off her robes — 

No, he’d been lied to, and he had every right to be mad.

Draco frowned through the dark as Hermione’s breath evened out. She’d not been that deep into her misery when he’d arrived, but the book about teeth remained a few paces away, splayed. She picked it up with a snap to her posture. She ran her fingers over the paper to remove the creases. She didn’t meet his eye, not as she pushed out the marks she’d caused.

“You’ve thought about it though, haven’t you.”

Hermione’s hand stilled, her eyes narrowed through the dark.

“Strange thing to just make up on the spot to fit in,” Draco said with a dip in his gaze. He looked over her, once, his eyes narrowed.

Hermione dipped her head but he caught it; a smile.

Draco glared at her through the dark.

“It’s late.”

“Wait,” Draco cut her off, his hands raised. “That night when you caught Michael and whoever that poor girl was — were you jealous?”

“Of Michael?” Hermione said in a bored voice as if he’d asked her what time it was.

“Of them, fucking in the Library.”

Hermione reared the book as if she might throw it at him.

Draco’s face lit up, that flame of mockery rich beneath his tongue. He tasted blood now, in how she ducked her face away to tuck the book into it’s home as if it needed to be done. She could have set it down anywhere and he’d have flown back in time. She’d turned because she’s a fucking swot and she wanted to get fucked in the Library and he’s — Draco doesn’t know how to feel.

His birthday was earlier in the month yet he was sure it’d come now.

“We should go to bed.”

“No, no,” Draco waved a hand through the air. “I should have guessed, you of all people…” He smiled at her as if he’d cracked the case.

“I’m not jealous.”

“I wouldn’t blame you. I always wanted to shag someone in the Library,” Draco said before he’d caught it, and he flipped the dream into a nightmare. His jaw froze around his thought as his gaze rolled down to her, this bright ball of red and brown cast in the Library shadows.

She looked unconvinced.

“I suppose that’s too far for you though. Too much rule-breaking,” Draco drawled with a wave of his hand.

“Too much of you,” Hermione said with a scoff.

Draco masked the gut reaction to wince. “I mean… Objectively…”

“You can’t just say ‘ _objectively_ ’ as if that makes the point for you,” Hermione said with thin exasperation.

Draco stared at her, his jaw rolled sideways as he watched her through hooded eyes. Because in his panic over exams and the end of school, he’d pictured her bent over a desk, against the shelves, on her knees… He’d turned her over in his mind, he’d picked the angles he’d best want to fuck her from and she hadn’t the faintest idea. Because, objectively, he could hate her and still want to fuck her.

(Not that he really hated her — he just didn’t very much like her.)

Hermione flexed her brows, as if to ask what he had to say for himself.

“Objectively,” Draco repeated, a slow smirk spread across his lips. “There’s ways to avoid looking at one another during.”

“Oh,” Hermione said with a snort. “Yeah, sure, we’re — you aren’t serious, Draco.”

Draco leaned against the shelf to his left, his arms crossed. “I’m just stating facts.”

“As if you’d want to.”

Draco shrugged.

Hermione stared at him as if he’d lost his mind, and in truth, he probably had. Somewhere between her confession about the Library, the patrol, the birthday wishes… Hermione was this strange, warm thing that he wanted to try just once, just to see what it’d be like. He doesn’t want her, not in any permanent way. And he isn’t even sure that he wanted her, as she was. But he noticed her curves that he’d not seen given their time apart. He’d not seen her much their Sixth year and they’d spent the time from then on apart.

They’d both been afforded the luxury of sleep and good meals at Hogwarts. The latter meant that she’d developed a nice arse. And Draco, for all his blood purity of the past, hadn’t felt fuck all since — shit, Fifth year? Fourth? He’d toddled along, aware that he had a cock and a distant interest in the opposite sex, but he hadn’t ever really thought about someone in such specific, yearning terms. Not that he’d confess that part to her, he’d die before he said that.

But he could stoop low enough for a pity fuck in the Library.

Oh, a ‘sorry’ fuck, as she didn’t pity him.

Draco didn’t move as she stepped closer. Not even as she reached out to touch his chest, her thin fingers against his robes. He was thankful that the robes were thick enough to keep her from touching the scar Potter had carved into him as he had no time nor patience for the tragedy of ‘woe is me’ — he’s done that for a year, more, and he wanted less than that. He wanted her, at least a little, at least once.

But he remained still because he wouldn’t be culpable.

He refused.

“I appreciate the thought,” Hermione said in a small voice as if she might scare him if she spoke louder. “But I don’t need your pity.”

“What if I just feel very sorry for you?”

“Well, that’s different,” Hermione slid a hand upward. It toyed with his tie as if it were the wrong color. As if she could change it with the brush of her fingers. Her gaze lingered there, somewhere beneath his jaw and by his throat. He swallowed hard, enough to make her gaze bob. And she leaned up to press a kiss to his pulse point, though she rushed back with fear in her eyes.

But it was too late for that.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m — sorry.”

Draco raised a brow at her, the thin white strip of his teeth flashed before he snatched her up. He kissed her because he was already in this, in this stupid decision, because even if all it turned into was a kiss, he’d be able to say he kissed Hermione Granger in the Library.

(Not that he’d tell anyone.)

The worst part was that she kissed him back. She encouraged him with the twist of her fingers into his hair and the eager moan into his mouth. He should have known. The girl was a people pleaser by default. She twisted closer to him, lost to the gesture and all he can think is how the fuck they ended up here. He’d avoided her all of their Eighth year, he’d not thought about her much at all, and now he was tongue deep in her.

Because he’d deepened it, enough to loosen the moans from the back of her throat. He grinned into the kiss, his knee pressed between her thighs and she screamed into the space between their lips. He snickered, cruel and thin, his teeth nipped at her lip. Because she was fun to tease, fun to mock, and now she’d offered herself up on a silver plate. His hands formed along her ribs, her hips, enough to shove her against the shelves. They didn’t rattle given they were old shelves, ones that were built into the foundations. If they were against a returns shelf, it’d be a mess.

But this shelf is sturdy enough to handle how he rocked his thigh against her, the surprise wide eyes matched by the shock-popped mouth.

“You okay, Granger?” Draco asked with the same nastiness he always had because to be nice would feel too much like caring.

“I’m fine,” Hermione said with a snippy tone. She spoke between gentle moans, so that snippiness was a lie.

Draco furrowed his lips into a dismissive look as he drew back, to meet her eye.

“What?” She frowned.

“I’m just — Merlin Granger,” Draco gritted his teeth. “I was making sure you were actually fine.”

“Why do you care?”

Draco withdrew with mild amusement, as she made the most lascivious sound of disappointment. “I’d rather fuck you if you’re willing, as if that’s some grand surprise.”

“You want to — ”

“Don’t,” Draco snapped a hand over her mouth, his eyes narrowed down at her. “Don’t act as if that’s a surprise.”

Hermione glared up at him over the curve of his palm.

“I’ve always wanted to fuck someone in the Library, you’ve always wanted to get fucked in the Library — ”

“Please stop saying it like that — ” Hermione whined as she yanked his hand away.

“So that’s all it has to be.”

Hermione leaned against the shelves, her robes splayed as much as her legs. She fidgeted with her hands as if she were about to make a deal with the Devil.

“Neither of us tells anyone; we never mention it again.”

“Never?” Hermione repeated, her eyes fixed on her hands.

Draco caught her jawline with the width of his palm, to meet her eye. “As if either of us would want to admit to it.”

Hermione searched his eyes for longer than he liked, but he allowed it. If only because his cock was throbbing against his thigh and they didn’t have much time to make the choice. But his question was answered as she reached out to cup him through his slacks, a shy smile on her face.

“We probably don’t have too long,” Hermione said before she pulled him close.

He wasn’t quite sure who picked up the pace, but his belt had been yanked open and his slacks had inched down around his thighs. He kept his attention on her, on the soft warmth of her mouth and the thin loop of her arm around his neck. He can taste that desperation, the sort that made him think of death in the usual way. He wanted nothing more than to exist in the moment, to bury himself inside her and scratch the itch she’d cursed him with.

But he wasn’t sure how she’d handle such a shift.

Instead his wormed his hand between them, to drag skirt up enough to cup her through her underwear. She was wet all along her thighs and worse against her cunt. His fingers searched for what his cock had yet to reach, that firm warmth that shattered what shallow joy her mouth provided. Tongues thrashing didn’t rival the satisfaction of her underwear, tugged to the side. Worse, how hot she felt around his fingers as he teased her, against her folds, the soft edges than the tight, tight center of her.

It’s all so wet and warm and he’d want nothing more than to bury himself but —

He smirked as he drew back, enough to catch her closed eyes and open mouth. She had buried her face into his throat as he toyed with her clit and throw her head back when his finger sank inside. He’d had his hand worked into her hair to save her skull, for which he received no thanks. He kissed her again to capture the moans because they were his after all. He had caused them and so they were all owed to him, every single one. He coaxed each one from her, one finger thrusting into her until he was sure he needed two.

Because, despite all his cruelty and his malice, he didn’t want to hurt her. He refused to watch her ache and cry and plead, he refused to be that sort of evil. He kept his left forearm away from her as if that made up for the Dark Mark, but it never would.

He withdrew his hand with a slick sound of skin to grab her hip. He spun her so she was faced against the bookshelves and — she could be anyone this way.

And he could be someone more to her tastes.

Corner, or Weasley.

Anyone else.

She hadn’t looked at him since he’d pushed his fingers into her and — that’s fine. It was what he’d offered. He didn’t give a fuck. He just wanted to have the perverted privilege of being the one to fuck Hermione Granger in the Library.

(Not that he’d tell anyone.)

“Please,” she said with a gentle exhale. “Gentle.”

Draco felt his heart shatter. He almost stopped but she grabbed his hips to pull him close and he’d been made aware of his erection. He’d disassociated from sexual desire a long time ago, just one of those fun trauma things. But he’d regained it in the stress of exams, and now all he wanted…

Merlin, he didn’t deserve this.

And yet he felt her hand grasp him, to help because she wanted this. Not him, of course, she wouldn’t look at him, but she wanted this. And he wanted to fuck her, as he’d said a dozen times, and he didn’t care. He didn’t care about her, most of all, he cared about himself. But he’d give her gentle for as long as he could manage. He couldn’t do anything else.

With a little shift in the posture of his hips and hands, he was inside her. Not all at once, just a little, then she shifted, and inhaled, then shifted further.

Draco touched her neck then her cheek, gentle, then he grabbed her shoulder.

And then he was inside her and he really didn’t care, he really didn’t — 

But Hermione kept her eyes shut tight. He should've done the same. He’s stupid. He suggested this, he’s the one who said they didn’t have to make it about one another. And yet he watched her as she took him in with all the same curiosity she had in classes, this angry befuddlement that cracked like an egg once she understood. That was her problem. She was so expressive. He could see where the head of his cock caught against the ridges of her cunt, where it’d be best to strike.

She made it too easy.

She’s so stupid like that. So easy to read. He’d pity her if he wasn’t so eager to make her open her eyes, to realize it was him who’d given her this gift.

Because yes, he’s a gift, absolutely fuck anyone who said otherwise.

The grip on her shoulder remained while he took her hip into his other hand. She gripped the bookshelf and his hand, the one on her hip, and he isn’t sure how they ended up here. Or how he’d ended up fucking Hermione Granger, the swottiest of swots, in the Library. And yet here he was, cock deep and his toes curled. He gritted his teeth and lost any sense of ‘gentle’ and she didn’t seem to mind. He’d taken it slow, he’d given her all that he could. And his hand, the one on her hip, slipped.

He pressed inward against her, his hips still aggressive as he marked her inside out, that she’d always be his in this way. Draco cared deeply for that which was his.

And she was his right now, as he toyed with her clit to listen to those tiny moans. The ones she caught between her lips, her eyes strained shut.

He took the hand away from her shoulder to ruck her shirt up enough to tease her through her bra.

He did every little thing he could think of. Every stupid trick he’d heard other boys mention.

“You’re so tight Granger,” he said against the shell of her ear, a laugh at the edges of his voice. “Wish I’d done this a long time ago.”

“Oh shut up,” she managed, in spite of the sopping wet mess that was pressed against his pelvis. “As if I’d have let you,” she tensed against him.

“You let me now,” Draco said, at least more in control of the pace and ergo, his voice.

“Because I was desperate,” she said with a laugh, bright and wonderful despite the cruelty.

The bitch.

Draco tongued his lips apart. He wanted to have some pithy thing to say back but he didn’t. All he had was the pace. And so he dropped the hand from her tit to settle onto her shoulder. He gripped it, firm but gentle. He’d made considerations for her, so as to not appear like a total cunt, but she’d not extended the same favor in kind. And so he withdrew from her altogether, his hand on her hip and her shoulder used to flip her.

Hermione stared at him, which she’d not done once since he’d first been inside her.

Draco smirked down at her as he picked her up by her arse, no hesitation as he picked her up. Her fingers scrabbled with the shelves behind her, her elbows outward like right angles. He poised himself against her, but not quite. The weight of her arse against his pelvis allowed him enough freedom to toy with her clit, which he thumbed with idle interest.

“You are desperate, aren’t you.”

Hermione glared at him, a deep red to her cheeks.

Draco raised a brow at her, his thumb doubled in pressure and pace. She responded against her personal resistance; not that she’d seem upset with him, more brattish. And he’d never really toyed with his food before he’d eaten it. He’d never given much of a fuck about whoever he was with, but if he’d only have her once, he wanted her to remember him.

“Draco,” Hermione said with a sharp ache in her tone.

“Hermione,” Draco responded, his thumb stilled.

“I — don’t… Don’t stop,” she said with such a deep scowl the lines might be permanent.

Draco rolled his hips forward, pleased to see the way her eyes rolled and closed all at once. And for all his plans, for all the horrible things he wanted to do to her, they didn’t have all night. His gaze flicked between her shirt that had rolled up, the bunched skirt, the occasional flicker of skin between her skirt and his stomach. But no matter how much he wanted to, he’d never get enough of this moment, he’d never get to catch every little sigh and moan and tense.

Instead, he watched her, her eyes closed and her mouth open as the heat welled in his stomach.

But — 

She came, which shocked him so deeply that he lost that apprehension only a moment later. The ripples of her cunt, the tightening, the way she scrabbled her fingers, the wide mouth and strained neck, the way she arched closer… The rock of the books, the freeze-frame of her undone against him, the tension lost, the moment gone, that debased curiosity satiated. He had watched Hermione Granger come because of him; he’d come inside Hermione Granger.

The moment warmed as he watched her, cautious as if to make sure she was okay.

And she was; of course she was. She smiled like a pleased cat and wriggled so as to be free of him.

And Draco shoved himself back into his pants before she had even fixed her skirt.

And he —

He left.

He shouldn’t have.

But he had to.

Draco skipped breakfast that morning. He remained in his room. He attended the final ceremony out of obligation. Granger stood by Corner, pleased. She gave a speech about house unity and Pansy made a joke about it, something sexual, and Draco laughed. And then he watched Granger rush over to the girl Weasley and giggle and part of him wondered if she’d told Weasley. Or anyone. Or if it had even happened.

She didn’t speak to him, or look at him.

For the best.

They had agreed that it would be a moment; a single time. And he hadn't taken his time. He hadn't given her enough, he hadn't done enough. But there was no sense in it, no real place for them. He didn't care about her and she didn't care about him.

They had fucked in the Library in some _la petite mort_. He had to focus on his future, he had to secure his family's future. Granger had every pleasantry to focus on, all the accolades and whatever job she settled on.

There was no happy ending here.

It was sex. Just sex.

He repeated that over and over. His compartment was packed with Slytherins, half of which he didn't recognize. He hadn't seen any other Eighth years and he felt even emptier as they trundled into the summer evening.

He wouldn't miss Hogwarts or anyone therein.

But he might miss Granger.

He shouldn't have left.

But he had to leave.

He couldn't handle the conversation. She'd have made him promise to keep it quiet. Or she'd look at him with regret-stained cheeks, a blush around her edges because that hadn't been the first time she'd wanted for herself. He hadn't done enough.

By the time the Hogwarts Express pulled into Kings’ Cross station, Draco had convinced himself it was a strange dream he’d had, brought on by the stress of his exams.

“Hermione!”

Draco felt his skin turn to ice as he stood by his mother, who was in talks with Pansy’s mother.

Draco stared at the ground as he listened to Potter and Weasley bustle over to her. The foley of the crowd killed the conversation. He fidgeted with his family ring, as he dragged his thumbnail over the ‘M’, over and over.

A hand caught his elbow. He looked towards it, as he expected his mother.

But it was Granger.

“Owl me about your results, okay?” Granger said with a glare. “I want to know if you beat me.”

And she rushed off to link arms with Ron, that stupid tall git. And he kissed her, gently, a blush on her cheeks.

And Draco watched her go.

And he did owl her.

(Not that he'd tell anyone.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to give them a proper fuck, so here we are, 13,000+ words later.

It was with great displeasure that Draco woke to the sun.

Not the sun itself, but the beams of light that cut through the dark and straight into his cornea. That was if he wanted to be specific about it. And why not be specific as it gave him a reason to roll further into his sheets and to pretend he were still asleep. He would take any measures to remain in bed, for he had at least an hour before work.

The thought of work scrunched him further into the sheets.

Good grief.

The shuffle of sheets beside him made him frown, for he had blurred the evening from his mind. A young woman was beside him, brunette, a few years older than him with a round face. But she was too short, her arms were too thick. She wasn’t quite the shape he liked, so all he could think was how she’d looked better in her dress robes. The layers had preserved some of the mystery and he’d filled in the gaps with — 

With someone else.

Anyone else, really. Someone more his type, not that he could describe his type by his tongue nor his hands. He just knew when he saw someone if he wanted them, and so he’d have them.

If they wanted him, which they often did.

Draco neglected to wake up the woman, whose name was something like Julie or June, whose face was buried half in the crook of her arm and half in the pillow. She’s cute, he supposed. Cute enough. He didn’t do this often in spite of the jokes his friends threw his way. They had the misconception that the girls all liked him but they liked his money. And if his money wasn’t to their tastes, they’d lash him with compliments, about his features or his figure…

Or they’d be stupid and try to flirt through cruelty, which worked only a smidge better than the compliments if they did it just right. But he hadn’t slept with anyone in six months, and before that?

Granger, the Library. The bookend to his sexual experiences, like a tally mark up high he’d never quite top.

Because how does one top fucking the bookish Head Girl in the school Library?

Draco rolled his gaze back to the woman, bored. He would shove her, to ask her to leave, but she might try to speak to him. He didn’t have the patience for this after business, that intimacy where you looked someone in the eye. Where you saw the disappointment that sat beneath the kindness, where they said it had been okay. Just, okay.

His throat tensed.

He didn’t care.

But this woman, the one strewn across the wide bed in his London apartment… He couldn’t remember how it’d all gone down but she worked in the pool of Auror handlers, the ones who put the reports together.

She was an attempt at intimacy. But he remained as distant as ever as if he had been given a splayed toad to dissect. He felt immoral like he’d ruin her further if he spoke to her. Like his tongue were a knife poised to split her apart, to find how she worked and tweeze the muscles to make her dance. His throat ached at the thought, worse than before, and he shook his head. If he couldn’t even recall the specifics of their night together, then it mustn’t have been good. Though he couldn’t recall her name, nor how she’d broached the topic of dinner. Because she’d asked him and he’d said yes to show his parents he was out in the world. 

His parents worried, and so he made a token effort every six months or so.

Maybe there’d be a tiny article about it in the back of the Prophet, a place his mother used to frequent. The social sections, the same place that Weasley and Granger often popped up with the rest of the Weasleys. They went to charity events, to galas, to fundraisers, to every piteous event that might garner more attention for the war heroes' appearance. Draco didn’t go to such things, not unless his mother wished to go. 

But she often donated by proxy and kept her name private. She’d been torn to shreds for her donations in the past as if she were out to manipulate good favor from the Wizarding world.

“Draco?” That was Julie-June, her little round face mussed with brown hair, sweat from the June heat fresh on her skin.

Draco moved from the bed, out of the covers and towards the bathroom. He didn’t explain himself, didn’t care to. Instead, he ducked into the shower after he’d made sure the door was locked. He was under the water in seconds, cold water seeped into too-warm skin. He hated being hot, hated it immensely. He’d have to speak to the Elves about the charm on the apartment, to keep the temperature cooler. He was still new to the apartment, he’d only moved in during the first few weeks of January.

He’d invited Granger to a house warming party and she’d rejected the invitation, to say that she had a birthday the same night. One of the various Weasleys. He still didn’t know if that was true or not, but he’d not tried since. He went out and fucked — someone. Some girl. And that had been around six months ago. So now, in June around the same time, he’d tried again… And it was as miserable as last time.

So there was Julie-June and some other girl who blurred into the shadows. The same spot that Julie-June would end up in a month or so, once she realized what this had been. 

By the time he’d showered, she’d left. She’d shouted through the door about work and dinner, and he’d ignored both. The spray of water permitted the ignorance and so he snatched it with eagerness.

Draco’s tongue flexed against the inside of his cheek. He wouldn’t linger on a once-off fuck in the Library with that girl like it were the gospel that he strove for. It hadn’t even been that good, and she’d been so — it was just the memory of it, the fun of it. It wasn’t about her, nor was it about him. It was an Eighth-year impulse, one which she’d not mentioned since. And he figured she’d have brought it up in their brief interactions or when she sent her monthly owl.

He had sent the first one, a simple letter with one sentence as an explanation, his results from their OWLs written out in his best cursive.

And he received back four pages, none of which mentioned the Library.

Which set the tone.

Draco approached his kitchen, though he peeked into his office as he passed by it. A few presents were piled up therein with several owls asleep in the sun. Sleek silver furniture peppered the room, with several beautiful hawthorn bookshelves built into the walls. Each shelf was packed with first edition books of varied subjects though most were healing magic or Light Arts.

(Draco wasn’t strictly allowed to own Dark Arts tomes, so he kept them hidden in the walls.)

His spare room and gym were both as he expected. The kitchen was intact, too.

So Julie-June hadn’t thrown a tantrum on her way out. His chest relaxed, as he’d expected her to tear his apartment to pieces. But she took the elusiveness well, something that would make the next few weeks at work easier. She had asked him out. She had pursued him. If anyone were to get into trouble for the night together, he had a full case against her — and if she destroyed his apartment, it’d be another point in his case against her.

Because he wouldn't put it past people to loath him given his contentious position as an Auror.

It wasn’t…

Technically, he _was_ an Auror.

But functionally, he was a glorified rat.

He told them those involved with the Death Eaters, their usual routines, their locations, their wards, their ranks — he told them everything they asked him, and most Death Eater artifacts worked for him. If they received a strange book or a sealed vial, Draco could tell by proximity if it were cursed. His blood made him immune as his grandfather had assisted the Dark Lord with the original conception of such artifacts and assisted with the Horcruxes.

It was in part how Draco crafted the cursed necklace, the poison, the cabinets — his skills were recognized.

But appreciated?

He laughed at the thought. His House Elf, Bleak, appeared with a pop.

“The Lady left while you were in the shower,” he said in a bright, peppery voice. He had a swirl of hair atop his head like a scoop of ice cream which Draco was sure was a wig. It bobbed as he spoke and often tipped over until it’d fall back into place. “She told me to inform you that she had a lovely evening.”

Draco grimaced. “Did she say anything else?”

“No sir,” the Elf smiled.

Draco relaxed, a sigh broke through the tension. “Good.”

“Should I alter the wards to permit her to return — ”

“No,” Draco snapped. “Fuck no.”

Bleak almost scolded his language, as he had been the Elf to care for Draco during his younger years. Another Elf, Tripley, had offered to come with Draco to his apartment, but his mother loved Tripley’s tailoring too much to let her go. And Draco’s apartment was only five bedrooms and a single kitchen. He didn’t need a squadron of Elves at his command.

“Any letters?”

Bleak smiled a slow smile.

Draco flexed his brows upward.

“No sir,” he waved a hand as breakfast glittered before him. Fruits, oatmeal, simple things. Which was good, given his mild hangover. “Ms. Granger has not sent any letters since April — ”

“Bacon,” Draco’s gaze cut towards Bleak. Bacon appeared as Bleak vanished.

The owls arrived monthly until they didn’t. He had assumed she’d been busy in May so he’d sent a short letter and received no response. Now, in June…

Draco swallowed hard, his hands flexed by his sides. It was for the best. He didn’t need her pity nor his companionship, even if it remained between letters once a month. He didn’t look forward to the stationery she’d use, as she had started with parchment but then spread out into strange Muggle stationery. She’d used some Christmas paper with little candy canes, for example. And for February, she’d sent stationery covered in hearts.

Granted, her February letter had been about an awful case of violence against a House Elf and how she’d almost gotten into a fistfight with a wizard on a trip out to their property. He dealt with that wizard, though he neglected to mention that in his reply. But he kept each of her letters in a small shoebox, folded and neat. He didn’t read them back, he didn’t often touch them, as that felt too much like caring.

And he didn’t care.

And it was a fuck in the Library.

But Hermione had put effort into the letters so it felt cruel to throw them away. Crueler than he could ever be to her, or the things she gave him. She’d sent a book with each letter after their N.E.W.T.s. results. That was how he’d gotten the book on healing magic, though she hadn’t gotten him the first edition. But he kept that on its own shelf. He sent her a set of books back and her next letter arrived tear-stained and crumpled.

About how he shouldn’t do that. How he shouldn’t give her expensive things.

Her letters became too personal, too quickly and he fell. He fell for every twist or turn she wrote about, as she told him all about her hunt for the Horcruxes, about how Weasley had run away, about the holidays leading up to it all.

She told him about her parents. About how she’d wiped their memory, about how she’d sent them away. That had been a long letter, which included her woes over her family. Because she didn’t have any, not really. She had Potter and Weasley. And if she broke up with Weasley, she’d lose everyone. How she’d lose everyone. How she wished she’d had a little more time to think about her life, about how she’d sent her parents away.

But he couldn’t remember the letters word for word. He wouldn’t let himself re-read them, as they might become some tattoo on his heart that he carried, where he’d search for that Hermione at the Ministry.

But when he saw her there — 

The woman in the Ministry wasn’t the girl in the letters. She’d not meet his eye if they passed one another. It was even worse if Weasley or Potter was around, though Weasley had shifted his hours down help at his brother’s joke shop. Draco had heard that through another girl and he hoped that Weasley would quit altogether. He was a rubbish Auror, awful at it, he was too loud and too aggressive. He’d burst into a room without a shield, he’d rush into every situation like he knew he’d live.

And he did live, which reinforced his awful approach.

But Draco didn’t often go on missions. He’d been on three with Weasley, and each had felt like Weasley’s attempt to get Draco killed.

He was quite sure Hermione had never told Weasley about what they’d done. But Draco wanted to tell him, with all of his heart. He wanted to shout it in the middle of the pen, where all the desks sat clustered. But he’d die before he weaponized the one thing he’d actually enjoyed since the end of the War.

Since the War, period.

…

“Happy birthday!” 

“Don’t do this,” Draco groaned.

“But it’s your birthday,” Potter said with a smile.

While Weasley wanted Draco dead, Potter… He didn’t like Draco, per se, but he wasn’t out for blood at every opportunity. But this was cruelty that he’d not anticipated, not as the office joined in on a round of ‘happy birthday’. By the time the song hit its crescendo, Draco had made it to his office. He was kept off to the side in a dim, dark corner by choice and design. His work often involved magic that needed to be contained, so he was crammed into a smaller space.

And, perhaps, in case he defected. The room was like night compared to the bright Aurors outside, who bustled and beamed at one another. Laughter echoed around, though Draco couldn’t work out what they were laughing about.

He tossed the light summer robe towards his coat rack, which reached out with its metal prongs to catch it.

Draco sat behind his desk, his eyes narrowed at the dark wood. He looked around the room with one slow scan. His eyes settled on the coat rack, which failed to disguise the witch behind them.

“I can see you, you know.”

“Harry was going to send you in and I was meant to surprise you and — he told me to — ” She pulled a string which sent a tiny firework out that said ‘Happy Birthday Ferret’ — it hung high in the air. Each letter shifted between green and silver, to which Draco could only glare.

“Polinski,” Draco said, his voice graveled. “Do I strike you as the sort of wizard who enjoys surprises?”

She scurried towards the door. But as she reached for it, the door swung open. It slammed into her arm and Draco sank further into his chair. His hands rested against his face as the shuffle of robes echoed the clumsy sidesteps.

“Everyone, get out,” Draco said in a level voice, his hands dropped from his face.

“Sorry,” Hermione said, an unsure smile on her lips. “I just wanted to drop off a, um,” she shook her head, her chin dipped.

“Wait,” Draco choked on his tongue as he stood up, his hand outstretched to wave for her attention. “You, get back here.”

Hermione froze, her brows low over her eyes as she looked to him. Polinski stood frozen beside Hermione as if Draco had been speaking to her.

“Get out Polinski,” he repeated, his tone not varied in the least.

The door snapped shut behind her as Hermione stood in her Ministry regalia, the same tan dress robes matched with a tight braid and the ugliest shoes he’d ever seen. He stared at them as if they were contagious.

“Sorry if I interrupted something,” Hermione said as her gaze slid upward to the glittering letters.

“You didn’t,” Draco cut her off again. He ceased the fireworks, but that made them glow brighter than before.

Hermione smiled at it in a curious way, her own wand raised. She gestured as several small balls of light formed around them, one after the other. Then she performed a charm that should form black ink, but instead, it ceased the sparkling letters altogether.

Draco glared upward, unable to meet her eye.

“It’s one of the — one of George’s,” she corrected, though he wouldn’t have thought twice if she mentioned the twins. “They always make the counter-charms a riddle, sort of. So to clean it up, you have to make a mess… Because who would think to blackout the sparkles with ink when they could just dispel it.”

“Fascinating,” Draco drawled. “Why are you here?”

Hermione winced enough for him to drop his gaze. “I felt bad about missing your letter last month, and you still sent a new one, so,” she fished in her pocket which seemed far deeper than it should be. “I got you a present, and I thought I should… I thought I might give it to you.”

“Did you now,” Draco arched a brow at her.

Hermione’s thin smile faded as she pulled out the gift.

It was a bottle of fire whiskey, the same cheap brand they’d used back in the dorms that night. His stomach dropped as he tasted bile and blood, though he knew the latter was psychosomatic.

Hermione rose with an explanation then dropped like a bruised lung. She swelled and plummeted, her gaze latched to his face.

Draco stared at the fire whiskey, tempted to down the whole bottle.

She stepped forward, to hand it to him but he didn’t move to accept it. When he remained still and impassive, she set it onto the edge of the desk. She fussed with the angle of it, side to side, before she looked back to him. There was tension to her lips and eyes, a tension he’d never seen in her. Not like this, not as she failed to say anything. All she was came from that strangled need to speak before she thought, though she thought quick enough to catch her mistakes.

“Is that all?” Draco said with a brave clap of his gaze to hers.

“Oh, and, two letters,” she kept that brazen confidence as she fished out two letters from her robes. One was labeled for May while the other said June.

“What’s the point?”

Hermione looked at him, her eyes wide.

“The letters,” he clarified. “Why do you bother to send them?”

“Because it’s polite to reply and you always send them,” Hermione said, a waver in her tone that he’d not heard in years. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t able to send one last month, I’ve… It’s in the letters, why, but I don’t expect you to read them all now.”

Draco flexed a tense smile and rolled his eyes.

“Do they annoy you?” Hermione asked as she searched for the root of the question. He wished he could tell her.

“Of course not.”

“Do you enjoy getting them?”

“Not especially.”

Hermione’s hand twitched as she reached for the letters, her face red. “You can keep the fire whiskey.”

Draco caught her wrist, though she’d already clamped the letters into her grip. He resisted the hexes that rested against his teeth, the words he could say to make her release them, to have her wholly, but he almost threw up at the thought. He felt sick from last night, from breakfast, but that was the thing — he felt something.

Which was a sparse, delicious thing, to _feel_ something.

“I’m sorry my letters are so painful for you.”

“Actually, they are painful," Draco said in a thin voice.

Hermione stared at him like she’d slapped him, those fear-wide honey eyes and that bob to her throat. He’d forgotten that about her, about how bright she was when she was up close. She yanked her hand away and he allowed it. She stood a few paces back, a few tendrils of brown hair dripped across her cheeks.

“Hermione,” Weasley’s voice warbled through the door. “What’s going on in there?”

Draco’s gaze jumped to the door, his hackles shot up, out, like he might cut his way through the door.

Hermione looked at Draco then to letters — and all it took was one spark. They went up like they were soaked in alcohol, which they might have been — they smelled of vanilla. As if the paper wasn’t flammable on its own, she’d doused them with perfume. He was left with scorched hands and a few scraps of paper. She’d left in his frantic preservation of the letters, trapped with every wrong thing he’d just said.

All he had were ash stained hands and lungs full of smoke.

And vanilla. Just a hint.

…

Draco stepped up the owls for the rest of the week. He spent his birthday at his apartment with the fire whiskey but he’d not opened it. He drank expensive vodka Thursday night and called out Friday morning. Of the seven letters he sent, he received one back.

From Weasley, saying to stop bothering them.

Them, at their apartment, with their kitchen and their — they wouldn’t have an office, would they? Or a spare bedroom? A personal gym?

Draco laid on the floor of his lounge in his boxers, his glare fierce up at the ceiling.

June was such a miserable, hot month. He hated it. Bleak promised he’d cool the place down but he felt like he were in the Inferno.

…

By the following Friday, Draco had confirmed that Julie (she’d been Julie) had moved on. She’d started seeing someone else, someone who was there for her, and Draco didn’t even blink.

By the end of July, Draco swallowed the boulder he called his pride and went to visit Hermione’s office. Because he’d sent more owls and received no response. He didn’t even write anything on the letters, he just sent them, these beautiful stationery sets, books, whatever he thought she might like because she might get the hint. She’d not sent another letter nor had she explained herself.

Though to be fair, he’d not explained himself either. Not entirely.

Granger had an exposed desk, which he wanted to laugh at. The inclination to mock her for the power difference almost sounded, but the heat of her glare kept his words tucked deep in his throat.

“Lunch,” Draco said, his voice idle. “Let’s go.”

“I think not,” Hermione said with a firm slap of her seal. She had a weighted bronze set, which he frowned at. There were dozens of shapes and colors. As if she couldn’t have a cleaner set-up.

“Please,” Draco said like each constant wrapped around his teeth.

Hermione frowned at him.

“I want to know what those letters said. From you, directly,” Draco looked over his shoulder then back to her. Her department was barren. The place was made up of tiny walls and vaulted ceilings. Not even paper planes flew around here. It was the legal avenue for the abuse of magical animals, and while their cases must be consistent, it was lunchtime. 

Hence his request, hence his demand.

Hermione stared up at him, her hands folded onto her desk. “Why are my letters so painful for you?”

It was an easy question.

Or it would be, to someone who had a spoonful of Draco’s ego.

He shuffled his weight in a boyish way, one would forget he was in a three-piece suit.

“Well?” Hermione snatched up her seal to stamp another piece of parchment. “Is my life so boring? Do I write too much? Am I too much, period? Because I’ve been told all that before, so whatever it is, you can just say it. Just tell me you hate me, just — just tell me, tell me what I did wrong.”

Draco adjusted his posture so he swooped, just a little, just to make sure he wasn’t heard. “I’ll tell you over lunch. We’re not doing this here,” he added with a sneer. A plump witch bustled by with a bronze cage full of doxies.

Hermione looked up at him, that bright-eyed look in her eyes again.

“Consider this payback for that time you made me patrol with you.”

Hermione’s severity broke into the sweetest smile she’d ever given him. He felt it through his stomach, lower, like he’d die for her to see it again. And he shuddered, his shoulders pinched and his eyes narrowed. She slapped down her seal and went to grab her robes. He noticed she’d been stamping a random parchment, as all the seals were laid in mismatched patterns. He chuckled beneath his breath, the tension still there as she returned, her hand on his elbow.

But then she yanked it back, a tiny fist formed as she looked up at him.

And for the year that had passed, he couldn’t help but think of the last time they’d been this close, the Library — 

“We could get takeaway,” Hermione waved her hand towards the ceiling. “Your office? If you need privacy, to be honest.”

Steel snapped around him as if he’d fallen into some abysmal trap that he’d not seen coming. But it was only her hand as it squeezed his bicep, once, then a little more, as if she hadn’t expected whatever she’d felt. And then she jumped away and he — it’s all him. She’s just being nice. Which he would take over the anger and the mismatched words. They walked in silence and kept their distance. There were several small cafes nearby the Apparition points and argued the merits of each.

Hermione won because Draco allowed it.

“Next time we can try your place,” Hermione said before she’d thought it through.

“Bold of you to assume there’ll be a next time.”

Hermione smiled in a sharp way like she might kill him. He bathed in her attention.

They secured a few plastic containers of pasta and salad, which they agreed to split. She hummed over the muffins but declined to pick one, so Draco picked all of them.

“I don’t need that many muffins,” Hermione hissed.

“Who says they’re for you? Get your own,” he said with a smirk.

He used her indignation to pay for both of them. He slipped a hundred dollar bill and told them to keep the change. Hermione slapped down the owed amount and counted out an extra twenty dollars and forty cents, which she slapped down on top. She tipped her coin purse out and several buttons and a little piece of gum wrapper fluttered out.

“Ah, I’ll… Sorry,” she said as she struggled to pick up the wrapper but managed to waft it away. “Sorry.”

Draco kept his cool but he almost broke into tears.

It could have been this easy. 

But it wasn’t. Not as they returned to the Ministry, not as the space returned between them. She had the hot food while Draco had eight muffins in four separate brown bags. They’d thrown in two of each, which left him curious about which Hermione would choose first. They passed by Aurors and desk clerks, though their silence and distance brought no attention to them. It was a coincidence they’d walked back together, or so people would tell themselves.

The dark of Draco’s office was like an embrace as he shrugged off his robes and ruffled his hair. He worked a slight charm to rid it of the sweat from outside, his eyes shut and his chest tight.

“So why are my letters painful for you?”

Draco exhaled, heavy and loud.

“Just tell me!”

“Because,” Draco said to shut her up. “I don’t want a play-by-play of your life by mail each month.”

“Oh.”

“I…” Draco caught himself before honesty strangled out the last of his ego. He watched her process the confession as if she could find the truth if she dug into the confession deeply enough.

“I’m sorry if I told you too much, or if I overwhelmed you.”

Hermione had set the food onto the desk, which she made sure was lined up just so. She summoned two plates and some cutlery. It was all scraped and scuffed which made him smile. Everything he owned was his from the start. His parents had a few heirlooms, but nothing bore marks. They were buffed and polished and made perfect. But Hermione was focused on the practical, all the way down to her ugly brown shoes.

“We don’t have to send letters,” Hermione turned to him, her hands worried in front of her. 

“It’s not the letters themselves,” Draco waved a hand before he crossed his arms, his shoulders tensed.

“So what is it?”

“I’d rather be there to see it myself.” Draco loathed agony that broke his voice. “Not second-hand, halfway across London while you’re fucking Weasley.”

Hermione frowned at the curse word but she always did that.

Draco thought the words would be enough, but they weren’t. He was left bared and confused as she worked him over, head to toe, as if she could dig deep enough into him. Her book report, her charity case. He adjusted the muffins on the desk, to set them aside. He fussed with his desk, with the limited decorations, the lamp, the quills, as he tried to find himself.

“I broke up with Ron in May.”

Draco’s gaze snapped to her.

“Not because of you. He knew, about… I told him, about what happened with us,” Hermione struggled with her words as much as he did. It didn’t help how thick the air was. “I never lied to him, not once. I told him everything. But I found out in May he’d seen a girl a few times since January… Which I can forgive a few missteps, but that’s — ”

“No, that isn’t really missteps, that’s just cheating,” Draco said in a brittle voice. “Your cock doesn’t just fall into the same girl once, let alone a few times.”

“I did cheat on him first,” Hermione strained her throat as she swallowed. “With you.”

Draco searched her eyes, his stomach flipped over and over.

“He asked me out in — June? Just before we…” Hermione squared her jaw around the words. “And, so, I told him immediately. He said he blamed you. That he knew it had to be a trick, or something to push us apart, or something like that. A love potion, a spell… He was convinced it was something you did to get back at him, and I believed him.”

“That wasn’t it at all,” Draco spat.

“I know it wasn’t,” Hermione smiled in spite of his tone. “It’s been a year, I’d have worked out if you’d used ill-intended magic to secure such an encounter.”

“Good,” Draco said, his neck hot with the rage buried deep in his stomach.

“So, the letters — it was an apology to you for being honest with Ron, for mentioning it. And for bringing it up at all. I know you didn’t want me to — ”

“What?”

“Neither of us tells anyone; we never mention it again,” Hermione repeated, his words in her mouth. “As if either of us would want to admit to it.”

“I…” Draco waved his hands as if pixies had swarmed him. “Are you serious.”

Hermione’s expression hardened.

“All this time,” Draco said, his throat dry. “All because of that?”

“You ran, Draco,” Hermione said, her voice shallow. “You quite literally ran away from me afterward.”

“What did you expect, a hug?”

“Yes, actually,” Hermione ground out. “Something. Anything, really.”

Draco looked to her, that edge in his gaze lost as it clashed with hers. She looked so much younger in the dark, too much like she had that night. All it would take was her robes to be black and he’d be back there, the same place he’d frequented when he felt lonely. But he was here, with her, her face turned up to his as she broke him open.

He’d been wrong when he though sex was intimacy.

He felt much like a toad splayed open, his legs dancing as she pulled at his tendons.

But Hermione remained fixed in front of him, her bright brown eyes wide up at him. She worried her hands, over and over, her lips pouted and her shoulders tense.

“Where are you living now?” He asked, no polish to his tone. Literal, direct, as if he were out to plan a coffee date.

Hermione looked at the floor, her hands worried into knots.

“Hermione.”

“Harry and Ginny have a couch,” she said in a thin voice. “I lived with Ron, but I couldn’t stay there, so… Just, for now, I’m with them.”

“And then?”

“I don’t know,” Hermione looked up at him, ferocity where he’d expected glossiness. “So, the Library… Are we ever going to talk about that?”

“What else is there to say about it?”

Hermione’s brows jumped up.

“I’m sorry that I ran.” Draco conceded that much of an apology, to which he stuffed his hands into his pockets. He’d almost done something stupid like touch her.

“I’m sorry I was so terrible I made you run,” Hermione snorted, her face bright red in the dark.

“It was quite the opposite, actually.”

Hermione’s expression scrunched, enough that her features were lost to the shadows.

“Weasley’s an idiot if he strayed from you,” Draco shifted, just a touch, just enough to catch her vanilla scent.

“I don’t blame him.”

“Hermione,” Draco snorted. “I don’t care if you think you cheated on him — it wasn’t as if you’d been dating in any real way, what with you at Hogwarts and him at the Ministry. He was probably shagging girls all our Eighth year.”

“Thank you for that,” Hermione said with a dry lilt.

“Did he explain himself?” Draco asked, his hands strained in his pockets.

“He said I was difficult. That I was a chore.”

“Difficult?”

Hermione’s mouth popped open before she buttoned it shut with her lips. “He said I was too difficult to get off, that I just wasn’t meant to or something, he tried, but it never really — we only ever really had sex a few times, maybe ten if you count the times neither of us enjoyed it. But I can assure you, I am able to climax — ”

“Yeah, I know, I was there for it.”

“I ruined my relationship with Ron,” Hermione threw her hands up before she crossed her arms, a thin frown on her face. “And with you.”

“No, I did that.” Draco flexed his hands, over and over.

“Sorry, I’m being too… You didn’t want to mention it — ”

“Shut up,” Draco scoffed. “Stop.”

“But — ”

“I said that because I thought you’d not want to talk about it. I wanted to give you an out.”

Hermione opened her mouth and closed it again, much like a puppet. She settled for a frown, her hand perched by her mouth. She glared at him, which he deserved. He had spent the better part of a year pining for a girl he’d pushed away, so far out of his reach that he’d almost lost her.

Draco watched her, his stomach roiled beneath his crossed arms. He kept the pattern where he’d cross and uncross them.

“Draco,” Hermione said, her voice soft.

He’d do anything for her in that second. His gaze met hers, his arms tightened.

“We should eat.” She gestured to the forgotten lunch. They had five minutes before they had to get back to work.

“I’m not hungry,” he said with a nod. “Take it. Eat at your desk if you want,” he added, his voice as soft as hers.

Hermione looked at the food. She moved to pick them up, one then the other. And, for all the tension in the air, she dumped them into her expanded pocket. She also grabbed all eight of the muffins and crammed them in, a pleasant smile on her lips.

“How big is that pocket,” he said with a snort.

“It saves me cooking later. The kitchen can be quite packed, it’s a small apartment with three of us in there.”

“You cook?”

“I do,” Hermione said with a smile. “Perhaps I can make you dinner sometime.”

“I have a spare room,” Draco said without thought. “If you wanted a bed for the night — some space from the Weasleys.”

“Dinner for a bed? Very medieval of you.”

…

By mid-August, their dinner joke had turned into dinner plans.

Draco slinked around his apartment with the same energy as a haughty curator at a museum. He tweaked the cushions and reorganized the fruit bowl, rinse, repeat. He hadn’t expected Hermione to accept his offer, for her to take his spare room for a few nights while she searched for an apartment. She had been on the hunt since May. Her income was unaccounted for and apartments in London were expensive. She’d had no luck, she lamented.

Her cat added to the complications, as apartment owners hated pets. She hadn’t been looking for apartments for long she’d told him earlier in the week. But she had been on Harry and Ginny’s couch for almost three months and the lack of privacy and the weight of her breakup with Ron had drawn her thin. She’d not received any of the stationery or books he’d sent to her old apartment, though Harry promised to escort her to her old place once they found a new apartment.

Not that Ron would do anything but Draco insisted.

He couldn’t go.

The little-used doorbell sounded and Draco swooped to answer it.

Hermione was in dark jeans and a sweater. She looked much as she had at school, not dressed up. Which clashed with his suit, which he’d put on by default. She hugged him as a greeting which threw him further off. He’d thought this was a dinner-date, but this was just dinner.

“Are you… Did — ”

“Sorry,” Hermione waved a hand. “I hadn’t realized this was a dressy affair.”

“No,” Draco gritted his teeth. “This isn’t my dressy — I — “ Draco yanked his tie off and popped a few buttons. “I had an appointment with my family.”

Hermione smiled in her blissful ignorance, her face a warm pink from the summer air outside. She stood by the door, a depth to her gaze that made him pause.

“Did you bring things with you? For your stay?”

“Oh,” Hermione gestured with the ugly little bag on her arm. “I did.”

“Good.”

Hermione blinked back at him, that same distant pleasantness that he wanted to strangle her for. She looked towards the kitchen and lounge with no visible reaction. Most people who visited gawked and commented on the size but Hermione wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She just smiled around, as if she were in any other home.

He’d never called this place a _home_ before.

“I have a question,” Hermione said in a plain voice.

“You should just ask the question rather than announce the question.”

“Can I kiss you?”

Draco snapped his gaze to her, but she remained unaffected. As if she’d not just asked the most loaded question imaginable. As if she’d not skipped the dinner and the tour and the — he had plans. He would show her to her room that night and in a few days, once she was about to leave, he would have kissed her. And then she’d go and he’d be content, in that he didn’t have to endure…

Rejection?

But he had rejected her. He had run. She said as much. She respected his wishes, she’d not mentioned it by his request.

And she stood in front of him, a little wearier around the eyes but the same girl from Hogwarts. The same bright-faced Head Girl who’d whispered his name like he were a taboo.

“I don’t know,” Draco said, a glint of his teeth shot her way. “Can you?”

Hermione’s beaded bag slid to the floor with a heavy thud, as if it were full of bricks. But she’d stepped towards him, her hand on his jawline and a private smile on her lips. Because she broke up with Weasley, she’d written letters to him, she’d been his, once, and she’d stayed his. Not in every way, but he’d been no purer than her. But that purity rose in him like white-hot warmth as she leaned in to kiss him, gentle and sweet like a kiss beneath the mistletoe.

And she withdrew, a smile on her lips.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I… I think I was owed that — that was all I wanted after we were together.”

Draco gathered her face into his hands without thought, to yank her close and kiss her. Not light and gentle, though he could do that for hours. He might have bruised himself on her with the pressure, his fingers angled along her jawline, the heat of her mouth pried between his cool lips.

Because he felt like he was at home for the first time in years.

Which made no sense.

He hardly knew her; she hardly knew him.

But the letters swirled in his mind, the little box full of dozens of sheets. All the letters she’d written to him about the Order and Dumbledore’s Army, the confessions of a war heroine who frequented the papers. The tell-all articles told him nothing about her, nothing like the gentle little moan trapped at the back of her throat. So he kissed her, deeper than before, his blood hot and his throat tight.

She giggled into the kiss like it was a surprise but then she moaned again and he couldn’t handle this.

He grabbed her thighs, her back pressed against the door with the shape of his body. He held her there so he could control the pace, as she shied away from him, away from his lips.

“Wait,” she whimpered which froze him stiller than any hex. “Can I… My room? If, just… I — ”

“Sorry,” Draco croaked, unable to find his voice.

“May I see my room?”

Draco slid her back to her feet though he turned so she’d not see he’s hard. At least the thick layers of dress robes allowed him that escape. But all he can taste is cinnamon and all he could smell was vanilla. He jammed his hands into his pockets as he stalked into the apartment. And while she’d been modest before, he noticed how her eyes widened at the apartment. But she wouldn’t say it out loud, how it was magnificent.

But he could tell. He didn’t have to ask. Dozens of people had commented on it, at the house warming she’d refused to attend.

“There’s a gym, my office,” he waved a hand to the right side of the hallway. “My room… Yours,” he pointed loosely.

“And the bathroom?”

“There’s one in your room, and a communal one…” he turned to point over his shoulder. “There’s a potions room too, just a small one, and… Oh, storage, but that’s just crates, books… Things I don’t care to display.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

Draco smirked.

“That’s… Six rooms? Seven?”

“Is that not normal?” Draco shrugged, the smirk widened.

Hermione mumbled under her breath as she stepped into his bedroom.

“Ah — that’s my room, as I said.”

Hermione popped her head back out. “I want to see your bathroom.” She disappeared back into the room, then reappeared again. “If that’s okay?” And she disappeared again without a ‘yes’.

Draco trailed her, his brow furrowed. She walked with intent though she slowed to admire the two giant windows against the far wall. His apartment was a corner apartment after all, up in a higher floor so the view was adequate. That is, if you wanted to watch Muggles run around like ants on the pavement below. A beautiful garden sprawled outward from there and a Parliament building sat across from that. Draco didn’t know which one it was, or if it was important, but it was something.

Hermione rushed into his bathroom, which made his brows inch higher.

He examined his room in her absence and toyed with his lips. They were still warm from how she’d kissed him as if it were that easy.

“Now.”

Draco looked up to see Hermione, or her face rather. She had pushed it through the crack between the doorframe and the door, her hair in a thick shape before her.

“This was Ginny’s idea.” She gave him a severe look. “I do not accept criticism but I will accept a refusal.”

Draco stared at her, his eyes narrowed. His gaze darkened as he saw more skin than clothes. She’d been dressed not ten seconds ago.

“This is meant to be a flirtation and an impromptu seeming occurrence, however, I understand that it has been a year, so, if you weren’t interested in me, sexually, please inform me now before I make a fool of myself.” Hermione raised her brows as if to implore a response.

“I can see you’re naked Granger, just come out.”

“I’m not naked, actually, so,” Hermione shoved the door open to reveal herself, posed in the least striking manner possible. She had one hand on her hip while the other latched to the door. “I just don’t want you to feel as if I’m here for purely sex as I do like you, and I would like it if you liked me too.”

“You should have opened with that. Just, the last part,” Draco scoffed. But he picked at the matched underwear. They were dark teal with silver edges and an overlay of silver lace. They looked expensive but not especially so. But his gaze refocused as he realized what Hermione had said in her awful, contrived manner.

“Am I being stupid?”

“No,” Draco stepped closer, which she didn’t flinch away from. “Ah, a little direct, but I appreciate that about you.”

“Says the boy who said, _oh let’s just fuck in the Library for a laugh_.”

“You swore,” Draco said with a dip of his chin, as he was so close he had to look down at her.

Hermione crossed her arms, as confident as she had been in her sweater and jeans. “Fuck,” she said with a jut of her chin up at him, her brows raised like a threat.

“You're such a bad girl,” he said with a chuckle. He didn’t miss the red in her face which made sense. She was nothing if not a people pleaser.

“I’m allowed to swear, I’m practically naked — we’ve had sex, before, so — don’t tell me I can’t swear.”

“You can swear all you want,” Draco twisted a strange pout onto his lips. “It just makes you a bad girl.” He kept his face strict even if his chest tightened. He wanted to laugh because it was such a stupid phrase. But it was fun to say because she was so desperate to be a good girl in every way.

Hermione glared up at him, red in the face as she always went when she was frustrated. Angry, or confused, or whatever this was now, she turned red. She was so easy to read, he thought.

“What’s wrong?”

“Why did you ask me? About the Library? You always teased and bullied me, I thought you hated me. And, you did, didn’t you.”

“I like you,” he said as he dragged her closer by the wrists.

“You’re awful at showing it,” Hermione said in a hot voice as if she were angry.

Draco reared to that as if it were a challenge. He dragged her closer by the wrists, though it took no strength to shift their posture. He had pressed her against the wall though she was so much less dressed than before. For that he was thankful. And he might even actually thank Ginny in the form of a fruit basket or a bottle of wine. His gaze dipped over Hermione to the silver and teal lingerie. He’d given that Weasley girl a jeweled crown for her part.

But for now, he bit down on Hermione’s lip and drank in her sounds of surprise.

Her hands were at his belt like they’d done this a dozen times as if she knew exactly what she wanted. He felt a pang of worry low in his stomach, as he’d invited her as a guest and as a refuge. She was to stay here for several days, at least until she got sick of him. She could leave whenever she wanted and he would still be here.

He couldn’t run, not from her.

Not this time.

“Draco,” she whispered between them as if they had to be quiet. “I really am sorry for last time. For what I said… About being desperate.”

Draco hadn’t even thought she’d remembered that — he did. He knew she’d only taken him because she was lonely and miserable. “Don’t be sorry,” he said into the column of her throat. He broke through the hesitation to grind against her where his robes met lace. Even with all the fabric, he could feel how warm she was, how warm they both were. She’d been so tight last time, he’d played the memories back enough to catch each movement.

“I just, I really liked you.”

Draco adjusted her so he could bury his face into her throat. His hand rested against her thigh and her upper back, more than a hug than anything else. And she scrabbled for him so unlike last time, when she’d been so distant, her eyes shut tight like she was with someone else. How he’d wondered if she thought about him while he fucked her. Or if she’d replaced him with others, Weasley, Corner, maybe even Longbottom — anyone except the dreary Draco Malfoy.

“I’ve been with a few people since then,” he said against her throat as if her embrace were a place for confessions.

“Yes, I would think so,” Hermione mimicked his growl, though he sensed that rasp of jealousy. He latched onto it as his grip tightened on her thigh, his thumb brushed against the thin lace of her underwear.

“When I was with them, all I saw was you.”

“Those poor girls,” Hermione said in a small voice.

“Poor girls? As if they gave a fuck either way,” he said, his head snapped back to meet her eye.

“They must have cared about you,” Hermione’s dropped an octave, too much optimism in her words. Even she couldn’t be that blind.

“People don’t tend to care about me,” he tipped his head to adjust his angle, to look at her through dark silver lashes. “My money, perhaps. Maybe my lineage, if they’re inclined… But not me.”

“I care,” Hermione snapped back.

“I know.” But it was pity. She felt sorry for him. She’d said as much. “I can’t imagine why.”

Hermione’s eyes widened up at him as if she might slap him.

Draco batted around the word ‘love’, just to see how she’d react.

It wouldn’t be a true confession, not with her half-naked against him. It was his instinctual need to manipulate, to give people what they needed, to pour kindness into her until she broke. She’d never pick up on how he turned her over, as she did to others. But she exposed herself, her need for approval and her need for intimacy, and he’d exploited that. He’d used her in the Library and she’d twisted it into some romance. Something he’d never meant, something he didn’t deserve.

The letters were something, he supposed. He never told her much about himself but she gave him everything. And she’d confessed her break up with Weasley, she’d exposed herself as vulnerable and he’d swooped in to devour her. He’d taken her body once, he might as well take her heart and mind next. The urge to consume her, to keep each part of her in a jar, her love, her kindness, her courage, overwhelmed him. He already had so much of her tucked in that shoe box of letters, her life segmented into neat, decorative sheets.

But she pulled him back into a kiss first and he obliged. He was selfish like that, selfish enough to endure her genuine softness for what he wanted.

To have her and lose her a second time would be too much like punishment. But all he wanted was her.

Her, all to himself, his selfish wants twisted around her sweet intent.

“You didn’t answer,” she said in a small voice as she reached for his belt, to pry at the length of black threaded through silver.

Scales. Draco didn’t know why, but all he could picture was scales. They were silver and slim, almost skeletal. And he felt as if blood poured like wine onto one of the cup-like plates. All it took was a little too much, a little too long and the scales tipped. But not a little, not a bias, not a lean. It was a clatter as wine and silver sprawled across his mind, his teeth bared at the taste in the air.

Of her, that heat between her thighs threaded through his throat. He could taste her, but he wanted to taste her, entirely. His fingers dipped lower, past the elastic and lace until he felt soft skin. She was too wet for him to make much purchase, but then he found her clit. He brushed it with his knuckles and pivoted his wrist to tease at her cunt. Because he’s played the host and given her every chance to run.

Wasn’t there a fairytale about this?

The girl with red robes and the wolf with silver eyes?

He’d say as much if he wasn’t so dedicated to her, to that surprising series of moans as he teased. Because he wasn’t kind enough to sink two fingers into her. That’d be easy, quick, he’d be able to work her and have her and it’d be all over again. He’d rushed last time, brash and pressed for time. He had days, at least the whole weekend.

Not that he’d tease her for days. He isn’t that cruel.

(Not this time.)

“What was the question again?” Draco asked against her ear, his voice like silk. He had found his confidence again since the Library, he’d found that sliver of assertion, that need to toy with people with his tongue and teeth as much as his hands.

Hermione exhaled a rush of words and his finger withdrew. “I said, sort of, I meant to say — we should have sex. May we have sex?” Hermione corrected, to allow room for refusal.

Draco the hand buried in her hair tightened, to tip her head for her. He angled her so he could kiss her, gentle and coaxing. “I suppose if we must,” he sighed as if he were about to go on patrol again with her.

“Oh, don’t use that tone of voice — ”

That was all Draco could think about as he yanked Hermione by the waist to the bed, to throw her down without words.

She bounced a few times across the soft covers. He tensed until she laughed, her surprise bright in her face. But he was over her in seconds, his hands buried into her hair while he settled between her thighs. Only a knee, as the other foot remained on the floor.

Hermione cuddled him close and kissed him with every scrap of her bossy, brash self. She shoved his robes from his shoulders and he obliged. He wriggled his arms free though his hands snapped back to her knees. The inner side, to keep them parted, because he didn’t want to rush. He wanted her for years and then he needed her for one painful year. And now he had her for a few days, he had a chance…

“Hermione,” he exhaled into her open mouth, his shoulders tensed as his eyes snapped downward. He’d been so focused on his hands and her lips that he’d not noticed her own. She’d shoved his pants away, enough to fish his cock from his trousers. And he’s surprised for reasons he couldn’t explain.

Her lips and tongue moved in an unfamiliar shape and then Draco lost colors and sounds. All he had was touch and taste, the cinnamon from her lips and the warmth from her palm. The smell of something minty he couldn’t place until he could.

“When did you learn a lube charm,” he stammered, angry with her for how she’d stolen from him; his power, his control, his place above her. Because while he was between her thighs, she’d begun to stroke his cock as if she’d done it before. But of course, she had, just not his.

“It’s been a long time since the Library,” she said with a hum, her grip a little too effective for his liking. If this was all he wanted, he’d let her show off. But she had kissed him first, and she had shown up in lingerie, and she had invited him into his own room and — who did she think he was? 

He chased the friction of her palm because it felt good and…

Draco snatched her wrist to still her hand, his brows furrowed at her.

Hermione stared up at him, her cheeks red and her gaze sharp.

“I need you,” he said, his voice low. “All of you.” It felt like a confession he’d been hard-pressed to give but he had to say it out loud. He didn’t pause for her response, afraid of what it’d be. Instead, he slipped from his halfway stance across the bed to kneel beside it. He yanked her closer by the hips, finesse ditched because she’d trick him somehow if he let her. The world flipped onto itself as if it’d found itself back as it should be.

Even with the thin lace and silk, he could taste her. Given a thousand years, he’d never be able to explain what it was, as it was just her. Entirely her, soft and private, all of her pressed against his tongue. And he teased enough to feel like he were any good but that didn’t last long. Her moans dipped and keeled as he shifted against her, his pointed nose dug into the more sensitive parts of her.

He tore the underwear, half by charms, half by mistake. He’d wanted them off her and he’d gotten them off her.

The moan she’d unleashed would ruin any future knickers for her; they’d all be torn from her if it drew such a sharp, divisive sound from her throat.

Her hands had settled onto his head and cheek as she laid against his bed. His bed, in his room, in his apartment, all his. And now she was his, as she had been in the Library, as she had been from the moment he’d decided that he wanted her. He tongued her as deeply as he could manage, his eyes rolled back into his head as much as hers. And she’d looked down, once or twice, but he didn’t expect much more from her.

“Please Draco,” she said into the air, though she didn’t clarify what she wanted.

Draco paused, the heat of his breath ghosted around the wet, soft skin between her thighs. She shifted and clenched at the absence of him and he wanted to fuck her stupid already. But he couldn’t. Because he’d have to leave as she collected herself, as she redressed in his bathroom, in his apartment, all before she was no longer his. When she found her apartment with her requirements, all hers.

“Draco?” She mumbled into the air, her brown eyes glossy with tears. But she’d scrunched her eyes so tight he passed over the gloss. She didn’t look upset, she looked eager.

“You could stay as long as you want, you know,” he said against the curve of her thigh. He pressed a kiss to it before he nipped it. The bloom of red made his stomach drop.

“I wouldn’t want to impose,” she said, her confusion thick in her voice.

“I have space,” he said between the nips. “I work often, I could convert the spare room into an office for you.”

“Draco,” Hermione said with a gentle laugh. “I can afford an apartment.”

“But you don’t have to,” he hissed before his fingers found her cunt. He didn’t tease as much this time, just a little as a warning, then he sunk his finger into her like it was meant to be there. He curled it inside her because he remembered that spot, the one that made her clench and jerk. It’d been one time, brief in a Library, but he remembered it like nothing else.

“Draco,” she repeated, stuck between enthralled and furious.

“You could pay me if you want,” he said as he teased inside her, his weight shifted so he was closer to her. He leaned his torso lined up with hers, silver brushed with amber as he set a steady pace. He curled his fingers every few thrusts, to watch her seize and settle.

“You’d get sick of me,” Hermione said as if it were fact.

“I wouldn’t,” Draco dragged her into a kiss, his cheeks still wet from her cunt. He tongued her lips apart and poured her back into herself, another finger pressed inside her.

“It’s too much,” Hermione said between thrusts and his hand stopped. “Living together.”

Draco removed his hand, his fingers curled by her sharp hip bone. He tapped his fingers there as he examined her, his eyes narrowed. “Then you can have the apartment, I’ll move home.”

“Draco,” Hermione laughed.

“You need somewhere to live,” he said, his voice even. “You like the view, don’t you?”

Hermione squirmed beneath him, her eyes heavy-lidded. “Yes, but not enough to steal it from you.”

“You have a habit of stealing things from me,” he said, his voice hollow. He caught himself, his hand gripped onto her hip. “The muffins. You took all of them.”

Hermione gawked. “As if this is the time to bring that up!”

“Says the thief,” he muttered.

“I’ll think about it,” Hermione breathed, her skin hot beneath his hand. “Later, when… After…”

Draco looked at her as if he’d forgotten she was naked save for a bra. He shifted her so she was more central on the bed which was too easy. She was too light, too small. She needed somewhere nice to live, somewhere that suited her. And his apartment was better than anything else she’d get. She could pay him, or not, he didn’t really care. He just liked the idea of her, in his apartment, enjoying his view, in his bed.

Even if he couldn’t be there with her.

Even if his absence was a necessity.

The urge to push into her almost overwhelmed him. But his hips remained still as he looked down at her, her hair all over the place like a wet tumbleweed. He reached out to cup her cheek, to lean in closer so as to kiss her. Because it felt like the right thing to do, to savor this. He thought he might have another chance but now it didn’t seem likely. So he kissed her, slowly, though he never did anything so slow. He’d never felt so much like a kiss was goodbye as right now, as she pressed her hands to his cheeks.

The thought of this being theirs, whenever they wanted… It formed a knot low in his chest and he almost let out a cry from the sensation. His eyes burned, his throat too tight.

Hermione tugged at his shirt but he grabbed her wrist. He looped her arm around his neck, to keep her closer. His hand found his cock and her lower back in equal measure, half-curled around her. Her forehead pressed to his and he didn’t look at her. His eyes were shut, tight and determined because he wanted to fuck her. That’s what this was. It was a fun fling because he’d tricked her into a dinner date. It was his idea.

He didn’t really care all that much. He’d just said it because it seemed like the thing to say.

Hermione met his shallow thrust with a giggle and a moan. He didn’t know if he liked how she giggled as if she knew how this would all go. As if she’d pulled the strings just right, to get him to fuck her. As if this were a game and he was being played. But he wanted her and he’d wanted her for a year now, more if you counted that awful Eighth year. Where he’d stroked himself off to the thought of her.

He couldn’t even handle her doing the same.

But she grasped his cheeks and pressed kisses to his lips and mumbled small encouragements.

He swelled at the sound of each moan and drove deeper as if he might prove something. But he caught the pace and followed her touches. The room was darker now, cast in evening shadows. He was back in the Library, her with her eyes shut and him, desperate to make her acknowledge him. To acknowledge that he was the one to make her shout and moan and drip. His hands framed her thighs and pulled at her, to keep her close.

Her nails dug into the back of his neck as she keened, not into orgasm, but something had settled in her. It came in stages, those first few thrusts, then the pace shifted.

And Draco thrust, unable to trust his own senses.

And then he looked at her, silver sliced through the shadows.

Her gaze was locked onto him, a half-there smile sent back at him as if to ask if he could believe they were doing this. A fun smile, a pleasing smile, as if she couldn’t feel how he broke against her. He smiled back though it came out sharper than he meant. That shadowed apathy welled low inside him and sank further, deeper into the shadows. He’d find it again later once she left, or once he left. Whenever he was alone again he’d remember this, another thing he’d never quite be the best at.

But Draco growled a low sound as she yanked at his shirt, to pull him into a kiss.

She had settled and he gave up on gentle. She hadn’t asked for that, she hadn’t needed that. And the gentle silence, this soft intimacy, it felt too much like making love. He’d throw up at the idea, such a stupid thing, making love. He couldn’t make love, not with black ink in his veins and more scars than skin. 

His stomach turned.

“Are you shy?” Hermione asked, her voice thin. She tugged at his shirt again and he —

He didn’t even preface it. He pinned her wrists above her head and hardened the pace. He didn’t have the time nor patience to do the whole sob story, the poor little boy with the scarred chest, he didn’t have it in him. And she let out a strangled moan, her nails dug into his wrist. He adjusted their posture, to grip her hip and keep her pinned. He’d had a pace before, a pattern, but she’d yanked that away from him too.

Hermione didn’t giggle this time but she moaned twice as loud. She’d been quieter before, shier, and he couldn’t work out if it was his fault or just her experience.

“I’m not shy, Granger,” he said like silk, his mouth angled against her ear. He nipped her, hard, and she clenched twice as much as before.

Hermione pattered out an answer, about how he was dressed, about how he shouldn’t be — but he ignored her babbles.

Draco released her wrists to sit back, his hands splayed on her knees. His pace slowed for a second to appreciate the sight of her, that confused heat in her gaze as she stared up at him. “I think I made a mistake about you.” But he’d not stopped, his pace determined.

Hermione remained sprawled though her wide amber eyes were obscured by her dilated pupils.

“I thought you liked being right, always being the good little Head Girl,” he kept his tone even by pure luck. “But you’ve always been bad.”

“Bad! I’ve never been bad!” Hermione almost shouted though she snapped a hand over her mouth. She looked torn between a moan and a lecture which he decided was his favorite of her expressions.

“You allowed drinking in Eighth year,” he said with a roll of his hips. “You broke dozens of school rules aside from that. You sneaked into the Library after hours — you fucked me when you were with Weasley.” Each point was secured with a thrust, his tongue pinched between his teeth. “All this time, I thought I’d ruin you. But you’re the one who’s ruined me — making me complicit in all that.”

Hermione’s brows dashed across her forehead, her mouth pinched shut between thrusts.

“As I thought,” he said with a cool distance to his voice, a half-smirk settled to his lips. “You play all proper but deep down I can tell…”

“What, that I’m bad?” Hermione snapped, her face redder than he’d ever seen it. She was wetter than before, his hips remained in a gentle motion.

“Not that,” Draco tongued his lips apart, to tweak her nipple through her bra. “You were waiting for someone to treat you like the slut you are.”

Hermione’s mouth popped open but she didn’t speak. Instead, she squirmed against the sheets, her thighs tight against his hips. But she didn’t move away or try to shove at him. She met his hips with a determinedness he’d seen in exams and little else.

“Weasley couldn’t handle you,” he said with an exhale as he leaned in. “I doubt anyone else could. No one would dare to defile the precious Head Girl — ”

“You’re such a prick,” she said with a half-laugh, her teeth bared.

“Am I wrong?” Draco asked, his brow raised. “Weasley was never good enough for you. You said as much.” He reached for her face, to stroke her cheek. He winked down at her, a light silvery flash of a gesture before he latched onto her knees again. He leaned into that brash edge where he’d snapped her apart, to pry at her insides and coax out the real girl. Because while he understood that shyness she’d opened with, that wasn’t her.

She was fire and knives, she was a hex so strong you’d never recover. Hermione didn’t simper and fondle like a lost little girl in her first broom closet. She took from him, over and over. She took his mind and heart and soul, she took every part of him with that tight cunt of hers and he’d give it to her. He’d give her the apartment, the lingerie, the dedicated study, he’d give her any number of things just to see her eyes widen a fraction.

He’d kill to see her come.

The pace quickened because he lost himself to her, to her moans and to her insistence. She pulled at his shoulders and hips with her hands and calves. He should pull back or tell her to slow down or try to get away. But he didn’t. He pressed his forehead to hers and thrust into her as if this were his last chance. He savored the softness matched with tension, that deep pull of her cunt, that scent of wet in the air. He had so much he wanted to do with her, for her, but she never let him have fun.

He came because she mumbled against his ear, about how he was always such a prick, and he didn’t think twice. He shuddered against her as he came, unable to meet her eye, unable to look at anything. He exhaled against her throat, angry.

Angry at her.

“It’s okay,” Hermione said with a little laugh.

And he continued to fuck her because he’s no less hard now than he had been before. She gasped into the open air as if she hadn’t realized that his climax didn’t mean she was free. He blessed his luck when his erection held, though it was a dice throw. But he’d wanted her for a year, he’d have thrown himself off the roof if he lost an erection to her. He wouldn’t even hit the pavement. The embarrassment would turn him to ash and shadows and he’d disappear from this world.

He tugged his shirt off in her surprise, the silvery scar across his chest fainter in the dark. She mightn’t even notice it given how distracted she was.

When she came, he almost cried out of relief.

He kissed her, once, twice, each moan burned into his taste buds. He tasted her on her own lips, which made him cradle her head for more. He pushed into her, over and over, his come smeared against her cunt and his pelvis. It was a blur of tension and touches and then warmth swallowed him. He collapsed onto her, a deep kiss laid against her open mouth.

As he pulled back he lingered, inside her, his forehead against hers. And she beamed at him, her face red and her smile infectious.

“Dirty talk is quite fun,” Hermione said with a large sigh. “I can’t believe you called me Granger, you… You toad.”

“It slipped out,” Draco said with a laugh. “I felt you tense, so you have some issues to work through — ”

“Says you!” Hermione scoffed. She kissed him once, twice, her nose nudged his. “I’m not really a slut though.”

“You’re my slut,” he said with a smirk.

Hermione laid back against the white sheets, her face slick with sweat. “Draco,” she gave him a curious look. “Could you rephrase that?”

“Pardon?”

“I don’t want the way you asked me out to be, oh, you’re my slut. Imagine explaining to people…”

“Well, no, obviously not.” Draco’s stomach plummeted. “I wasn’t asking you out.”

“Oh.”

“But,” Draco interjected, his brow furrowed. “Would you want to? A date, a… A real date.”

Hermione looked down between them, to where his cock remained pressed inside her. “I… Yes? I think that’d be lovely.” Her fingers reached out to touch his chest. If she noticed the scar it didn’t show in her expression as she stared up at him, a strange smile on her lips.

“What?” Draco frowned.

Hermione parted her lips and snuffed out her nose. “I just… I rather wish you’d stayed the first time. That’s all.”

Draco adjusted so he wasn’t soft inside her, though he gathered her to his chest. He crushed her there, his expression sour.

“I was so afraid I’d done something wrong.”

“You didn’t.”

“I must have,” Hermione said, her voice thin. “To have made you leave.”

“I’m here now,” he said, his voice tense.

“What was it?” She asked, her voice somewhere between miserable and drowsy.

“Few people are better off for having known me,” Draco said, the sex enough to rattle the words loose. They felt like teeth, their sharp roots tore at his mouth as he let them go.

“Well,” Hermione said in a small, decisive voice. “I count myself as one of those few people — though I think you sell yourself short.”

“Yes, because that’s such a known trait of mine,” he said in a deadpan voice. “Modesty.”

Draco didn’t know if it was her laughter or her warm hands against his chest, but he felt like it were a summer day in his dark apartment. The room smelled of cinnamon and sex, her vanilla base angled against his rich cologne. They mumbled and worried over one another until she dozed, curled up in his arms.

They could discuss the apartment tomorrow if she wanted.

For there would be a tomorrow, something he’d never expected for them. Not as she laid loose in his arms, her mouth poised to give an opinion even in her sleep. There was a parted shape to her lips, sprawled wide enough for her wit to slip out. He pressed a kiss to her, so soft as to not wake her, but she pulled him back for another.

But she was asleep, he reminded himself.

“I’m sorry I stole all your muffins Draco,” she said like a dream. She roused, just enough, a sleepy blink set up at him.

“Sorry I stole your virginity,” he snorted.

“I wasn’t a virgin — Ron, before school… But it was hardly… It was awful, honestly,” she said, her voice loose.

“Ouch,” Draco said with a scoff. “That terrible?”

“Oh, no, but we were both so awkward and I snapped my hips so hard I almost broke his cock. He got very weird about it after that,” she said before she caught herself.

“Hermione,” Draco gritted his teeth. 

“But,” she placed a clumsy hand to her chest. “You did steal my heart,” she laughed like a songbird, her bright eyes turned up towards him.

They laughed because what else could they do. The night stole their time from them as it often did. By morning Draco had arranged breakfast.

And maybe she’d move in.

Or maybe they’d date.

He didn’t mind. Even as she sat across from him in his robe, at his counter with his food… Draco felt warm. He felt happy. As if the world hadn’t broken him down on repeat, as if he’d not spent his teen years in a cult obsessed with blood and wealth. She had a few bites on her throat that she’d glamour away. She ignored the newspaper he’d laid out for her, the one he’d opened to the apartments in her price range.

And she offered him a piece of grapefruit with her fingers, a little smile on her lips.

He snatched it with his tongue and shifted around to kiss her, and they fucked twice more that morning. Once in his office, with her bent over his desk because she'd been so happy that he'd kept her letters. Then against those bookshelves, as she’d not left the first editions alone all day. It hadn’t been all at once, but he counted each time as if it’d be their last.

He was just happy.

And he would be for as long as he could keep her.

(Forever, he hoped, in a small, private way.)

Maybe that was all this had to be.


End file.
